School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wilson's School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 218 families who named Wilson's School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 215 and 413 put it first.

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

1.92

first choices for every place available

413 first preferences for 215 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wilson's School

There is no published appeal success rate for Wilson's 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

Wilson's School 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 Wilson's School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.19 per place 252 first choices 211 places 2016/17 1.33 per place 290 first choices 218 places 2017/18 1.21 per place 264 first choices 218 places 2018/19 1.43 per place 291 first choices 204 places 2019/20 1.2 per place 248 first choices 207 places 2020/21 1.41 per place 305 first choices 216 places 2021/22 2.87 per place 595 first choices 207 places 2022/23 1.47 per place 307 first choices 209 places 2023/24 2.05 per place 430 first choices 210 places 2024/25 1.96 per place 416 first choices 212 places 2025/26 1.93 per place 403 first choices 209 places 2026/27 1.92 per place 413 first choices 215 places
First preferences per place at Wilson's School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 413 first preferences for 215 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wilson's School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 211 252 189 1.19
2016/17 218 290 193 1.33
2017/18 218 264 189 1.21
2018/19 204 291 186 1.43
2019/20 207 248 177 1.2
2020/21 216 305 191 1.41
2021/22 207 595 179 2.87
2022/23 209 307 179 1.47
2023/24 210 430 186 2.05
2024/25 212 416 177 1.96
2025/26 209 403 185 1.93
2026/27 215 413 195 1.92

Places offered

215

in 2026/27

Named first choice

413

771 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

47.2%

195 of 413

Offers to families outside the council

67%

144 of 215 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

955

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

948

99.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

7

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

372

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 Wilson's 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 Wilson's School reported 7 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.3% 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 Wilson's School 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 1,100 places 1,057 on roll 2011/12 1,100 places 1,058 on roll 2012/13 1,100 places 1,073 on roll 2013/14 1,100 places 1,060 on roll 2014/15 1,100 places 1,091 on roll 2015/16 1,327 places 1,118 on roll 2016/17 1,327 places 1,160 on roll 2017/18 1,327 places 1,189 on roll 2018/19 1,327 places 1,219 on roll 2020/21 1,327 places 1,290 on roll 2021/22 1,327 places 1,292 on roll 2022/23 1,327 places 1,297 on roll 2023/24 1,327 places 1,312 on roll 2024/25 1,327 places 1,312 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Sutton

Postcode SM6 9JW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136621).

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.