School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Michael's Catholic College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 69 families who named St Michael's Catholic College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 150 and 192 put it first.

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

1.28

first choices for every place available

192 first preferences for 150 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Michael's Catholic College

There is no published appeal success rate for St Michael's Catholic College, 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

St Michael's Catholic College turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at St Michael's Catholic College, 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 183 first choices 123 places 2016/17 1.68 per place 210 first choices 125 places 2017/18 1.42 per place 206 first choices 145 places 2018/19 1.53 per place 222 first choices 145 places 2019/20 1.65 per place 239 first choices 145 places 2020/21 1.28 per place 185 first choices 144 places 2021/22 1.38 per place 200 first choices 145 places 2022/23 1.52 per place 220 first choices 145 places 2023/24 1.64 per place 236 first choices 144 places 2024/25 1.49 per place 214 first choices 144 places 2025/26 1.48 per place 215 first choices 145 places 2026/27 1.28 per place 192 first choices 150 places
First preferences per place at St Michael's Catholic College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 192 first preferences for 150 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Michael's Catholic College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 123 183 90 1.49
2016/17 125 210 82 1.68
2017/18 145 206 107 1.42
2018/19 145 222 110 1.53
2019/20 145 239 118 1.65
2020/21 144 185 102 1.28
2021/22 145 200 110 1.38
2022/23 145 220 126 1.52
2023/24 144 236 125 1.64
2024/25 144 214 126 1.49
2025/26 145 215 126 1.48
2026/27 150 192 123 1.28

Places offered

150

in 2026/27

Named first choice

192

572 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

64.1%

123 of 192

Offers to families outside the council

43%

64 of 150 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 138961.

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

676

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

761

112.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

85

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

224

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 Michael's Catholic College 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 Michael's Catholic College 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Michael's Catholic College from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 735 places 749 on roll 2013/14 750 places 770 on roll 2014/15 750 places 786 on roll 2015/16 750 places 801 on roll 2016/17 750 places 843 on roll 2017/18 900 places 852 on roll 2018/19 900 places 854 on roll 2020/21 900 places 923 on roll 2021/22 900 places 918 on roll 2022/23 900 places 922 on roll 2023/24 900 places 951 on roll 2024/25 900 places 956 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
Southwark

Postcode SE16 4UN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 150937).

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.