School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Thomas More High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 59 families who named St Thomas More High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 179 and 202 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Southend-on-Sea actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

1.13

first choices for every place available

202 first preferences for 179 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Thomas More High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Thomas More High School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Southend-on-Sea as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Southend-on-Sea, 4.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 13 of 277 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Southend-on-Sea.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Southend-on-Sea ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

St Thomas More High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 8 of those years. In the other 4 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at St Thomas More High School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.9 per place 130 first choices 145 places 2016/17 1.12 per place 164 first choices 147 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 159 first choices 148 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 170 first choices 177 places 2019/20 1.13 per place 196 first choices 173 places 2020/21 1.03 per place 179 first choices 173 places 2021/22 0.86 per place 149 first choices 173 places 2022/23 1.14 per place 213 first choices 187 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 184 first choices 175 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 182 first choices 172 places 2025/26 1 per place 184 first choices 184 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 202 first choices 179 places
First preferences per place at St Thomas More High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 202 first preferences for 179 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Thomas More High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 145 130 107 0.9
2016/17 147 164 111 1.12
2017/18 148 159 106 1.07
2018/19 177 170 131 0.96
2019/20 173 196 145 1.13
2020/21 173 179 135 1.03
2021/22 173 149 126 0.86
2022/23 187 213 154 1.14
2023/24 175 184 131 1.05
2024/25 172 182 141 1.06
2025/26 184 184 137 1
2026/27 179 202 143 1.13

Places offered

179

in 2026/27

Named first choice

202

569 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.8%

143 of 202

Offers to families outside the council

25%

45 of 179 offers

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

870

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

907

104.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

37

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

300

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that St Thomas More High School has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures St Thomas More High School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Thomas More High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,065 places 984 on roll 2012/13 1,065 places 1,019 on roll 2013/14 1,084 places 1,022 on roll 2014/15 1,065 places 1,021 on roll 2015/16 1,065 places 992 on roll 2016/17 1,065 places 988 on roll 2017/18 1,065 places 1,011 on roll 2018/19 1,065 places 1,027 on roll 2020/21 1,170 places 1,176 on roll 2021/22 1,170 places 1,217 on roll 2022/23 1,170 places 1,242 on roll 2023/24 1,170 places 1,230 on roll 2024/25 1,170 places 1,202 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Southend-on-Sea

Postcode SS0 0BW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137310).

Other contested secondary schools in Southend-on-Sea

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.