School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Charter School North Dulwich?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 195 families who named The Charter School North Dulwich as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 178 and 363 put it first.

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

2.04

first choices for every place available

363 first preferences for 178 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Charter School North Dulwich

There is no published appeal success rate for The Charter School North Dulwich, 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

The Charter School North Dulwich 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 The Charter School North Dulwich, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.18 per place 368 first choices 169 places 2016/17 2.38 per place 402 first choices 169 places 2017/18 1.82 per place 320 first choices 176 places 2018/19 1.78 per place 318 first choices 179 places 2019/20 1.58 per place 283 first choices 179 places 2020/21 1.53 per place 280 first choices 183 places 2021/22 1.94 per place 348 first choices 179 places 2022/23 1.67 per place 301 first choices 180 places 2023/24 1.8 per place 319 first choices 177 places 2024/25 1.94 per place 334 first choices 172 places 2025/26 1.84 per place 317 first choices 172 places 2026/27 2.04 per place 363 first choices 178 places
First preferences per place at The Charter School North Dulwich. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 363 first preferences for 178 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Charter School North Dulwich, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 169 368 159 2.18
2016/17 169 402 154 2.38
2017/18 176 320 164 1.82
2018/19 179 318 166 1.78
2019/20 179 283 163 1.58
2020/21 183 280 164 1.53
2021/22 179 348 168 1.94
2022/23 180 301 170 1.67
2023/24 177 319 167 1.8
2024/25 172 334 156 1.94
2025/26 172 317 163 1.84
2026/27 178 363 168 2.04

Places offered

178

in 2026/27

Named first choice

363

1,195 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

46.3%

168 of 363

Offers to families outside the council

24%

43 of 178 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

960

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

944

98.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 The Charter School North Dulwich 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 The Charter School North Dulwich reported 16 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.3% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Charter School North Dulwich from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,130 places 1,083 on roll 2011/12 1,120 places 1,110 on roll 2012/13 1,120 places 1,130 on roll 2013/14 1,130 places 1,176 on roll 2014/15 1,130 places 1,195 on roll 2015/16 1,130 places 1,197 on roll 2016/17 1,130 places 1,193 on roll 2017/18 1,130 places 1,209 on roll 2018/19 1,130 places 1,240 on roll 2020/21 1,166 places 1,284 on roll 2021/22 1,166 places 1,272 on roll 2022/23 1,190 places 1,285 on roll 2023/24 1,320 places 1,303 on roll 2024/25 1,320 places 1,333 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Southwark

Postcode SE24 9JH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136298).

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.