School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 59 families who named Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 122 and 171 put it first.

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

1.40

first choices for every place available

171 first preferences for 122 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest

There is no published appeal success rate for Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Waltham Forest 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 Waltham Forest, 11.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 28 of 235 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 Waltham Forest.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Waltham Forest 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

Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest 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 Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest, 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 1.33 per place 126 first choices 95 places 2016/17 1.69 per place 164 first choices 97 places 2017/18 1.41 per place 165 first choices 117 places 2018/19 1.26 per place 148 first choices 117 places 2019/20 1.68 per place 202 first choices 120 places 2020/21 1.81 per place 221 first choices 122 places 2021/22 1.26 per place 156 first choices 124 places 2022/23 1.28 per place 157 first choices 123 places 2023/24 1.41 per place 174 first choices 123 places 2024/25 1.55 per place 187 first choices 121 places 2025/26 1.22 per place 150 first choices 123 places 2026/27 1.4 per place 171 first choices 122 places
First preferences per place at Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 171 first preferences for 122 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest, 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 95 126 86 1.33
2016/17 97 164 90 1.69
2017/18 117 165 106 1.41
2018/19 117 148 106 1.26
2019/20 120 202 112 1.68
2020/21 122 221 116 1.81
2021/22 124 156 110 1.26
2022/23 123 157 105 1.28
2023/24 123 174 109 1.41
2024/25 121 187 110 1.55
2025/26 123 150 113 1.22
2026/27 122 171 112 1.4

Places offered

122

in 2026/27

Named first choice

171

309 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.5%

112 of 171

Offers to families outside the council

9%

11 of 122 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

620

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

618

99.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

across Years 7 to 11

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 Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest 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 Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest reported 2 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.7% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Eden Girls' School, Waltham Forest from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 350 700 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 500 places 150 on roll 2015/16 500 places 251 on roll 2016/17 500 places 346 on roll 2017/18 500 places 465 on roll 2018/19 620 places 536 on roll 2020/21 620 places 583 on roll 2021/22 620 places 611 on roll 2022/23 620 places 608 on roll 2023/24 620 places 616 on roll 2024/25 620 places 618 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Waltham Forest

Postcode E17 5SD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140957).

Other contested secondary schools in Waltham Forest

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.