School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 78 families who named Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 233 and 299 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.

1.28

first choices for every place available

299 first preferences for 233 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase

There is no published appeal success rate for Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase, 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

Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase, 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 0.94 per place 169 first choices 179 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 187 first choices 177 places 2017/18 1.26 per place 226 first choices 180 places 2018/19 1.53 per place 263 first choices 172 places 2019/20 1.02 per place 238 first choices 233 places 2020/21 1.41 per place 329 first choices 233 places 2021/22 1.23 per place 287 first choices 233 places 2022/23 1.33 per place 322 first choices 243 places 2023/24 1.74 per place 423 first choices 243 places 2024/25 1.72 per place 407 first choices 236 places 2025/26 1.54 per place 355 first choices 231 places 2026/27 1.28 per place 299 first choices 233 places
First preferences per place at Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 299 first preferences for 233 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 179 169 158 0.94
2016/17 177 187 169 1.06
2017/18 180 226 173 1.26
2018/19 172 263 167 1.53
2019/20 233 238 202 1.02
2020/21 233 329 224 1.41
2021/22 233 287 216 1.23
2022/23 243 322 238 1.33
2023/24 243 423 235 1.74
2024/25 236 407 232 1.72
2025/26 231 355 224 1.54
2026/27 233 299 221 1.28

Places offered

233

in 2026/27

Named first choice

299

756 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73.9%

221 of 299

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 233 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 133708.

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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,236

103% of capacity

Over its capacity by

36

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

0

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 Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase 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 Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Hadley Learning Community - Secondary Phase from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 901 places 1,200 on roll 2010/11 1,321 places 1,282 on roll 2011/12 1,321 places 1,239 on roll 2012/13 901 places 826 on roll 2013/14 901 places 855 on roll 2014/15 901 places 878 on roll 2015/16 901 places 919 on roll 2016/17 901 places 928 on roll 2017/18 901 places 964 on roll 2018/19 901 places 931 on roll 2020/21 1,200 places 1,026 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 1,091 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 1,175 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,249 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 1,236 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
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Telford and Wrekin

Postcode TF1 5NU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144853).

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.