School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Haberdashers' Adams?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 158 families who named Haberdashers' Adams as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 135 and 285 put it first.

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

2.11

first choices for every place available

285 first preferences for 135 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Haberdashers' Adams

There is no published appeal success rate for Haberdashers' Adams, 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' Adams 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 Haberdashers' Adams, 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 1.51 per place 166 first choices 110 places 2016/17 1.51 per place 153 first choices 101 places 2017/18 1.54 per place 159 first choices 103 places 2018/19 1.72 per place 172 first choices 100 places 2019/20 2.06 per place 208 first choices 101 places 2020/21 1.72 per place 179 first choices 104 places 2021/22 1.3 per place 167 first choices 128 places 2022/23 1.28 per place 171 first choices 134 places 2023/24 1.33 per place 176 first choices 132 places 2024/25 1.56 per place 207 first choices 133 places 2025/26 1.73 per place 228 first choices 132 places 2026/27 2.11 per place 285 first choices 135 places
First preferences per place at Haberdashers' Adams. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 285 first preferences for 135 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Haberdashers' Adams, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 110 166 102 1.51
2016/17 101 153 100 1.51
2017/18 103 159 99 1.54
2018/19 100 172 97 1.72
2019/20 101 208 100 2.06
2020/21 104 179 101 1.72
2021/22 128 167 119 1.3
2022/23 134 171 128 1.28
2023/24 132 176 125 1.33
2024/25 133 207 116 1.56
2025/26 132 228 130 1.73
2026/27 135 285 127 2.11

Places offered

135

in 2026/27

Named first choice

285

558 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

44.6%

127 of 285

Offers to families outside the council

28%

38 of 135 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

728

97.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

22

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

376

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' Adams 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' Adams reported 22 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.1% 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 Haberdashers' Adams 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 2011/12 795 places 793 on roll 2012/13 795 places 793 on roll 2013/14 795 places 842 on roll 2014/15 795 places 869 on roll 2015/16 795 places 890 on roll 2016/17 940 places 887 on roll 2017/18 940 places 906 on roll 2018/19 795 places 916 on roll 2020/21 900 places 944 on roll 2021/22 1,126 places 1,037 on roll 2022/23 1,100 places 1,053 on roll 2023/24 1,126 places 1,066 on roll 2024/25 1,126 places 1,070 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
Telford and Wrekin

Postcode TF10 7BD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137446).

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.