School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Haberdashers' Abraham Darby?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 6 families who named Haberdashers' Abraham Darby as their first choice did not get a place: 110 put it first and 104 of them were offered one.

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

6

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

110 first preferences for 173 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Haberdashers' Abraham Darby

There is no published appeal success rate for Haberdashers' Abraham Darby, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Telford and Wrekin 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 Telford and Wrekin, 24.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 88 of 359 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 Telford and Wrekin.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Telford and Wrekin 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

Haberdashers' Abraham Darby turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 3 of those years. In the other 7 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 Haberdashers' Abraham Darby, 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 0.92 per place 166 first choices 181 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 176 first choices 178 places 2017/18 0.94 per place 168 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.03 per place 182 first choices 176 places 2019/20 1.21 per place 215 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.06 per place 187 first choices 177 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 172 first choices 177 places 2022/23 0.78 per place 134 first choices 172 places 2023/24 0.85 per place 149 first choices 176 places 2024/25 0.69 per place 123 first choices 179 places 2025/26 0.74 per place 129 first choices 175 places 2026/27 0.64 per place 110 first choices 173 places
First preferences per place at Haberdashers' Abraham Darby. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 110 first preferences for 173 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Haberdashers' Abraham Darby, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 181 166 137 0.92
2016/17 178 176 147 0.99
2017/18 179 168 141 0.94
2018/19 176 182 140 1.03
2019/20 178 215 155 1.21
2020/21 177 187 151 1.06
2021/22 177 172 146 0.97
2022/23 172 134 117 0.78
2023/24 176 149 134 0.85
2024/25 179 123 110 0.69
2025/26 175 129 120 0.74
2026/27 173 110 104 0.64

Places offered

173

in 2026/27

Named first choice

110

427 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

94.5%

104 of 110

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 173 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

1,000

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

915

91.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

85

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 Haberdashers' Abraham Darby 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 Haberdashers' Abraham Darby reported 85 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91.5% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Haberdashers' Abraham Darby from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 737 on roll 2010/11 1,100 places 776 on roll 2011/12 1,100 places 836 on roll 2012/13 1,100 places 919 on roll 2013/14 1,100 places 986 on roll 2014/15 1,100 places 1,001 on roll 2015/16 1,100 places 986 on roll 2016/17 1,100 places 999 on roll 2017/18 1,100 places 1,037 on roll 2018/19 1,100 places 1,054 on roll 2020/21 1,100 places 1,105 on roll 2021/22 1,100 places 1,084 on roll 2022/23 1,100 places 1,093 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,070 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 1,052 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Telford and Wrekin

Postcode TF7 5HX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135582).

Other contested secondary schools in Telford and Wrekin

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.