School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ark Bolingbroke Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 132 families who named Ark Bolingbroke Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 130 and 240 put it first.

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

1.85

first choices for every place available

240 first preferences for 130 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ark Bolingbroke Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Ark Bolingbroke 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 Wandsworth 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 Wandsworth, 6.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 16 of 241 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 Wandsworth.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Wandsworth 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

Ark Bolingbroke 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 Ark Bolingbroke 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 1.24 per place 149 first choices 120 places 2016/17 1.32 per place 158 first choices 120 places 2017/18 1.58 per place 183 first choices 116 places 2018/19 1.5 per place 179 first choices 119 places 2019/20 1.05 per place 166 first choices 158 places 2020/21 1.09 per place 169 first choices 155 places 2021/22 1.35 per place 185 first choices 137 places 2022/23 1.43 per place 198 first choices 138 places 2023/24 1.34 per place 180 first choices 134 places 2024/25 1.5 per place 207 first choices 138 places 2025/26 1.49 per place 204 first choices 137 places 2026/27 1.85 per place 240 first choices 130 places
First preferences per place at Ark Bolingbroke Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 240 first preferences for 130 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ark Bolingbroke Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 149 90 1.24
2016/17 120 158 88 1.32
2017/18 116 183 94 1.58
2018/19 119 179 100 1.5
2019/20 158 166 128 1.05
2020/21 155 169 113 1.09
2021/22 137 185 96 1.35
2022/23 138 198 111 1.43
2023/24 134 180 102 1.34
2024/25 138 207 114 1.5
2025/26 137 204 112 1.49
2026/27 130 240 108 1.85

Places offered

130

in 2026/27

Named first choice

240

868 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

45%

108 of 240

Offers to families outside the council

4%

5 of 130 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

600

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

604

100.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

4

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

243

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 Ark Bolingbroke 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 Ark Bolingbroke Academy was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ark Bolingbroke Academy from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 600 places 121 on roll 2013/14 800 places 245 on roll 2014/15 600 places 353 on roll 2015/16 600 places 455 on roll 2016/17 800 places 559 on roll 2017/18 800 places 630 on roll 2018/19 800 places 700 on roll 2020/21 800 places 740 on roll 2021/22 800 places 749 on roll 2022/23 800 places 767 on roll 2023/24 800 places 763 on roll 2024/25 843 places 773 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Wandsworth

Postcode SW11 6BF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138267).

Other contested secondary schools in Wandsworth

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.