School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Nonsuch High School for Girls?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 128 families who named Nonsuch High School for Girls as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 208 and 274 put it first.

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

1.32

first choices for every place available

274 first preferences for 208 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Nonsuch High School for Girls

There is no published appeal success rate for Nonsuch High School for Girls, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Sutton 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 Sutton, 7.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 42 of 534 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 Sutton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Sutton 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

Nonsuch High School for Girls 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 Nonsuch High School for Girls, 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 1.29 per place 254 first choices 197 places 2016/17 1.19 per place 250 first choices 210 places 2017/18 1.2 per place 252 first choices 210 places 2018/19 1.33 per place 279 first choices 210 places 2019/20 1.57 per place 329 first choices 210 places 2020/21 1.32 per place 314 first choices 238 places 2021/22 1.98 per place 415 first choices 210 places 2022/23 1.72 per place 359 first choices 209 places 2023/24 1.43 per place 301 first choices 210 places 2024/25 1.45 per place 304 first choices 209 places 2025/26 1.63 per place 340 first choices 208 places 2026/27 1.32 per place 274 first choices 208 places
First preferences per place at Nonsuch High School for Girls. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 274 first preferences for 208 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Nonsuch High School for Girls, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 197 254 150 1.29
2016/17 210 250 161 1.19
2017/18 210 252 176 1.2
2018/19 210 279 174 1.33
2019/20 210 329 185 1.57
2020/21 238 314 196 1.32
2021/22 210 415 152 1.98
2022/23 209 359 183 1.72
2023/24 210 301 175 1.43
2024/25 209 304 163 1.45
2025/26 208 340 161 1.63
2026/27 208 274 146 1.32

Places offered

208

in 2026/27

Named first choice

274

1,033 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

53.3%

146 of 274

Offers to families outside the council

51%

107 of 208 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

1,080

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,068

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

12

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

420

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 Nonsuch High School for Girls 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 Nonsuch High School for Girls reported 12 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Nonsuch High School for Girls from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,242 places 1,240 on roll 2012/13 1,242 places 1,240 on roll 2013/14 1,242 places 1,217 on roll 2014/15 1,242 places 1,226 on roll 2015/16 1,470 places 1,283 on roll 2016/17 1,470 places 1,311 on roll 2017/18 1,470 places 1,339 on roll 2018/19 1,470 places 1,365 on roll 2020/21 1,500 places 1,505 on roll 2021/22 1,500 places 1,509 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,519 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,520 on roll 2024/25 1,500 places 1,492 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Sutton

Postcode SM3 8AB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136795).

Other contested secondary schools in Sutton

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.