School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wallington County Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 94 families who named Wallington County Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: 165 put it first and 71 of them were offered one.

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

94

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

165 first preferences for 170 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wallington County Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Wallington County Grammar 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 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

Wallington County Grammar School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 8 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 Wallington County Grammar 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 0.66 per place 89 first choices 134 places 2016/17 1.1 per place 147 first choices 134 places 2017/18 0.73 per place 109 first choices 149 places 2018/19 1.03 per place 154 first choices 150 places 2019/20 0.91 per place 146 first choices 160 places 2020/21 0.85 per place 139 first choices 164 places 2021/22 1.02 per place 174 first choices 171 places 2022/23 0.76 per place 130 first choices 170 places 2023/24 1.09 per place 184 first choices 169 places 2024/25 0.59 per place 101 first choices 170 places 2025/26 0.62 per place 106 first choices 170 places 2026/27 0.97 per place 165 first choices 170 places
First preferences per place at Wallington County Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 165 first preferences for 170 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wallington County Grammar School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 134 89 75 0.66
2016/17 134 147 81 1.1
2017/18 149 109 61 0.73
2018/19 150 154 62 1.03
2019/20 160 146 85 0.91
2020/21 164 139 76 0.85
2021/22 171 174 25 1.02
2022/23 170 130 74 0.76
2023/24 169 184 31 1.09
2024/25 170 101 36 0.59
2025/26 170 106 65 0.62
2026/27 170 165 71 0.97

Places offered

170

in 2026/27

Named first choice

165

1,027 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

43%

71 of 165

Offers to families outside the council

68%

115 of 170 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

775

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

750

96.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

25

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

350

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 Wallington County Grammar 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 Wallington County Grammar School reported 25 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.8% 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 Wallington County Grammar School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 930 places 896 on roll 2012/13 930 places 933 on roll 2013/14 930 places 979 on roll 2014/15 930 places 1,033 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 1,026 on roll 2016/17 1,055 places 1,057 on roll 2017/18 1,125 places 1,093 on roll 2018/19 1,125 places 1,097 on roll 2020/21 1,125 places 1,122 on roll 2021/22 1,125 places 1,100 on roll 2022/23 1,125 places 1,100 on roll 2023/24 1,125 places 1,100 on roll 2024/25 1,125 places 1,117 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 SM6 7PH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136798).

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.