School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ashcroft Technology Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 205 families who named Ashcroft Technology Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 240 and 396 put it first.

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

1.65

first choices for every place available

396 first preferences for 240 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ashcroft Technology Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Ashcroft Technology 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

Ashcroft Technology 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 Ashcroft Technology 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 1.67 per place 334 first choices 200 places 2016/17 1.47 per place 302 first choices 205 places 2017/18 1.62 per place 318 first choices 196 places 2018/19 1.46 per place 302 first choices 207 places 2019/20 1.35 per place 318 first choices 236 places 2020/21 1.7 per place 390 first choices 230 places 2021/22 1.31 per place 317 first choices 242 places 2022/23 1.35 per place 330 first choices 245 places 2023/24 1.47 per place 352 first choices 240 places 2024/25 1.45 per place 349 first choices 240 places 2025/26 1.46 per place 347 first choices 237 places 2026/27 1.65 per place 396 first choices 240 places
First preferences per place at Ashcroft Technology Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 396 first preferences for 240 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ashcroft Technology Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 200 334 154 1.67
2016/17 205 302 144 1.47
2017/18 196 318 144 1.62
2018/19 207 302 147 1.46
2019/20 236 318 181 1.35
2020/21 230 390 183 1.7
2021/22 242 317 177 1.31
2022/23 245 330 191 1.35
2023/24 240 352 187 1.47
2024/25 240 349 180 1.45
2025/26 237 347 186 1.46
2026/27 240 396 191 1.65

Places offered

240

in 2026/27

Named first choice

396

1,208 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

48.2%

191 of 396

Offers to families outside the council

8%

18 of 240 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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,196

99.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

4

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

516

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 Ashcroft Technology 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 Ashcroft Technology Academy reported 4 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ashcroft Technology Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,350 places 1,088 on roll 2010/11 1,300 places 1,136 on roll 2011/12 1,050 places 1,181 on roll 2012/13 1,260 places 1,256 on roll 2013/14 1,300 places 1,278 on roll 2014/15 1,305 places 1,285 on roll 2015/16 1,305 places 1,269 on roll 2016/17 1,305 places 1,287 on roll 2017/18 1,300 places 1,269 on roll 2018/19 1,300 places 1,301 on roll 2020/21 1,450 places 1,321 on roll 2021/22 1,450 places 1,371 on roll 2022/23 1,450 places 1,422 on roll 2023/24 1,716 places 1,489 on roll 2024/25 1,716 places 1,505 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Wandsworth

Postcode SW15 2UT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135316).

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.