School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Leytonstone School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 34 families who named Leytonstone School as their first choice did not get a place: 187 put it first and 153 of them were offered one.

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

34

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

187 first preferences for 196 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Leytonstone School

There is no published appeal success rate for Leytonstone 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

Leytonstone School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 4 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 Leytonstone 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 0.73 per place 94 first choices 128 places 2016/17 0.8 per place 108 first choices 135 places 2017/18 0.75 per place 134 first choices 178 places 2018/19 1.05 per place 185 first choices 176 places 2019/20 1.17 per place 206 first choices 176 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 205 first choices 208 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 204 first choices 206 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 227 first choices 203 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 211 first choices 197 places 2024/25 1.1 per place 219 first choices 199 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 195 first choices 202 places 2026/27 0.95 per place 187 first choices 196 places
First preferences per place at Leytonstone School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 187 first preferences for 196 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Leytonstone School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 128 94 92 0.73
2016/17 135 108 108 0.8
2017/18 178 134 134 0.75
2018/19 176 185 155 1.05
2019/20 176 206 130 1.17
2020/21 208 205 170 0.99
2021/22 206 204 178 0.99
2022/23 203 227 179 1.12
2023/24 197 211 159 1.07
2024/25 199 219 170 1.1
2025/26 202 195 174 0.97
2026/27 196 187 153 0.95

Places offered

196

in 2026/27

Named first choice

187

608 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.8%

153 of 187

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 196 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,036

98.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

14

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 Leytonstone 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 Leytonstone School reported 14 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.7% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Leytonstone School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 880 on roll 2010/11 900 places 871 on roll 2011/12 900 places 869 on roll 2012/13 900 places 876 on roll 2013/14 900 places 868 on roll 2014/15 900 places 845 on roll 2015/16 900 places 826 on roll 2016/17 900 places 809 on roll 2017/18 900 places 816 on roll 2018/19 900 places 817 on roll 2020/21 960 places 921 on roll 2021/22 960 places 973 on roll 2022/23 1,020 places 1,011 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,039 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,036 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 E11 1JD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 103101).

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.