School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Frederick Bremer School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named Frederick Bremer School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 161 and 168 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.

1.04

first choices for every place available

168 first preferences for 161 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Frederick Bremer School

There is no published appeal success rate for Frederick Bremer 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 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

Frederick Bremer School turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 1 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 Frederick Bremer School, 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 0.78 per place 135 first choices 172 places 2016/17 0.74 per place 106 first choices 144 places 2017/18 0.76 per place 125 first choices 164 places 2018/19 0.77 per place 130 first choices 169 places 2019/20 0.88 per place 150 first choices 171 places 2020/21 0.83 per place 141 first choices 169 places 2021/22 1.07 per place 176 first choices 165 places 2022/23 1.04 per place 172 first choices 166 places 2023/24 1.39 per place 214 first choices 154 places 2024/25 1.04 per place 174 first choices 168 places 2025/26 1.2 per place 189 first choices 158 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 168 first choices 161 places
First preferences per place at Frederick Bremer School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 168 first preferences for 161 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Frederick Bremer School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 172 135 132 0.78
2016/17 144 106 105 0.74
2017/18 164 125 124 0.76
2018/19 169 130 130 0.77
2019/20 171 150 133 0.88
2020/21 169 141 137 0.83
2021/22 165 176 147 1.07
2022/23 166 172 138 1.04
2023/24 154 214 134 1.39
2024/25 168 174 144 1.04
2025/26 158 189 148 1.2
2026/27 161 168 129 1.04

Places offered

161

in 2026/27

Named first choice

168

645 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

76.8%

129 of 168

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 161 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

884

98.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

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 Frederick Bremer 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 Frederick Bremer School reported 16 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.2% 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 Frederick Bremer School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 886 on roll 2010/11 900 places 888 on roll 2011/12 900 places 874 on roll 2012/13 900 places 879 on roll 2013/14 900 places 887 on roll 2014/15 900 places 858 on roll 2015/16 900 places 857 on roll 2016/17 900 places 855 on roll 2017/18 900 places 866 on roll 2018/19 900 places 845 on roll 2020/21 900 places 845 on roll 2021/22 900 places 874 on roll 2022/23 900 places 883 on roll 2023/24 900 places 889 on roll 2024/25 900 places 884 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Waltham Forest

Postcode E17 4EY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 103094).

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.