School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at City of London Academy (Southwark)?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 16 families who named City of London Academy (Southwark) as their first choice did not get a place: 223 put it first and 207 of them were offered one.

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

16

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

223 first preferences for 240 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at City of London Academy (Southwark)

There is no published appeal success rate for City of London Academy (Southwark), or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Southwark 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 Southwark, 15.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 85 of 547 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 Southwark.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Southwark 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

City of London Academy (Southwark) turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 of those years. In the other 2 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 City of London Academy (Southwark), 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 1.49 per place 338 first choices 227 places 2016/17 1.51 per place 349 first choices 231 places 2017/18 1.39 per place 325 first choices 234 places 2018/19 1.67 per place 388 first choices 232 places 2019/20 1.57 per place 362 first choices 231 places 2020/21 1.2 per place 275 first choices 230 places 2021/22 0.77 per place 181 first choices 234 places 2022/23 1.02 per place 237 first choices 233 places 2023/24 1.12 per place 259 first choices 231 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 222 first choices 231 places 2025/26 0.86 per place 207 first choices 241 places 2026/27 0.93 per place 223 first choices 240 places
First preferences per place at City of London Academy (Southwark). Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 223 first preferences for 240 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at City of London Academy (Southwark), by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 227 338 168 1.49
2016/17 231 349 191 1.51
2017/18 234 325 184 1.39
2018/19 232 388 194 1.67
2019/20 231 362 191 1.57
2020/21 230 275 192 1.2
2021/22 234 181 166 0.77
2022/23 233 237 180 1.02
2023/24 231 259 190 1.12
2024/25 231 222 196 0.96
2025/26 241 207 185 0.86
2026/27 240 223 207 0.93

Places offered

240

in 2026/27

Named first choice

223

660 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.8%

207 of 223

Offers to families outside the council

7%

17 of 240 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

1,184

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,171

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

13

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

316

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 City of London Academy (Southwark) 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 City of London Academy (Southwark) reported 13 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.9% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at City of London Academy (Southwark) from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,200 places 1,038 on roll 2010/11 1,200 places 1,069 on roll 2011/12 1,200 places 1,087 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,123 on roll 2013/14 1,200 places 1,199 on roll 2014/15 1,200 places 1,250 on roll 2015/16 1,350 places 1,318 on roll 2016/17 1,350 places 1,327 on roll 2017/18 1,350 places 1,415 on roll 2018/19 1,500 places 1,492 on roll 2020/21 1,500 places 1,496 on roll 2021/22 1,500 places 1,550 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,583 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,555 on roll 2024/25 1,500 places 1,569 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Southwark

Postcode SE1 5LA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 134222).

Other contested secondary schools in Southwark

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.