School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Walthamstow Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 72 families who named Walthamstow Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 221 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.

1.29

first choices for every place available

221 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Walthamstow Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Walthamstow Academy, 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

Walthamstow Academy 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 Walthamstow Academy, 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 1.3 per place 232 first choices 179 places 2016/17 1.16 per place 204 first choices 176 places 2017/18 1.28 per place 229 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.51 per place 266 first choices 176 places 2019/20 1.17 per place 209 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.21 per place 210 first choices 173 places 2021/22 1.31 per place 234 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.28 per place 222 first choices 174 places 2023/24 1.37 per place 234 first choices 171 places 2024/25 1.38 per place 237 first choices 172 places 2025/26 1.34 per place 239 first choices 179 places 2026/27 1.29 per place 221 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at Walthamstow Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 221 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Walthamstow Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 179 232 164 1.3
2016/17 176 204 157 1.16
2017/18 179 229 148 1.28
2018/19 176 266 158 1.51
2019/20 178 209 147 1.17
2020/21 173 210 148 1.21
2021/22 178 234 163 1.31
2022/23 174 222 154 1.28
2023/24 171 234 146 1.37
2024/25 172 237 156 1.38
2025/26 179 239 171 1.34
2026/27 171 221 149 1.29

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

221

712 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

67.4%

149 of 221

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 171 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

882

98% of capacity

Unfilled places

18

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

134

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 Walthamstow Academy 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 Walthamstow Academy reported 18 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98% 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 Walthamstow Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,150 places 841 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 884 on roll 2011/12 1,150 places 958 on roll 2012/13 1,150 places 989 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 981 on roll 2014/15 900 places 976 on roll 2015/16 900 places 979 on roll 2016/17 900 places 988 on roll 2017/18 1,034 places 1,022 on roll 2018/19 1,034 places 1,044 on roll 2020/21 1,034 places 1,054 on roll 2021/22 1,034 places 1,094 on roll 2022/23 1,034 places 1,094 on roll 2023/24 1,034 places 1,072 on roll 2024/25 1,034 places 1,075 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Waltham Forest

Postcode E17 5DP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 132727).

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.