School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 74 families who named Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 188 and 234 put it first.

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

1.24

first choices for every place available

234 first preferences for 188 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School

There is no published appeal success rate for Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary 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 Tower Hamlets 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 Tower Hamlets, 2.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 15 of 662 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 Tower Hamlets.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Tower Hamlets 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

Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary 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 Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School, 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 2.33 per place 393 first choices 169 places 2016/17 1.56 per place 314 first choices 201 places 2017/18 1.72 per place 326 first choices 190 places 2018/19 1.76 per place 344 first choices 196 places 2019/20 1.62 per place 312 first choices 192 places 2020/21 1.76 per place 329 first choices 187 places 2021/22 1.59 per place 301 first choices 189 places 2022/23 1.25 per place 246 first choices 197 places 2023/24 1.52 per place 288 first choices 189 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 246 first choices 195 places 2025/26 1.48 per place 279 first choices 189 places 2026/27 1.24 per place 234 first choices 188 places
First preferences per place at Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 234 first preferences for 188 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 169 393 150 2.33
2016/17 201 314 177 1.56
2017/18 190 326 164 1.72
2018/19 196 344 171 1.76
2019/20 192 312 156 1.62
2020/21 187 329 151 1.76
2021/22 189 301 156 1.59
2022/23 197 246 162 1.25
2023/24 189 288 154 1.52
2024/25 195 246 166 1.26
2025/26 189 279 170 1.48
2026/27 188 234 160 1.24

Places offered

188

in 2026/27

Named first choice

234

870 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.4%

160 of 234

Offers to families outside the council

2%

4 of 188 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

1,055

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,023

97% of capacity

Unfilled places

32

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

500

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 Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary 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 Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School reported 32 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97% 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 Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,233 places 1,538 on roll 2010/11 1,233 places 1,595 on roll 2011/12 1,233 places 1,616 on roll 2012/13 1,359 places 1,641 on roll 2013/14 1,359 places 1,634 on roll 2014/15 1,555 places 1,580 on roll 2015/16 1,555 places 1,488 on roll 2016/17 1,555 places 1,437 on roll 2017/18 1,555 places 1,408 on roll 2018/19 1,555 places 1,386 on roll 2020/21 1,555 places 1,438 on roll 2021/22 1,555 places 1,474 on roll 2022/23 1,555 places 1,405 on roll 2023/24 1,555 places 1,359 on roll 2024/25 1,555 places 1,366 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Tower Hamlets

Postcode E1 0RH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 100977).

Other contested secondary schools in Tower Hamlets

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.