School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chestnut Grove Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 165 families who named Chestnut Grove Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 206 and 298 put it first.

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

1.45

first choices for every place available

298 first preferences for 206 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chestnut Grove Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Chestnut Grove 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

Chestnut Grove Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 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 Chestnut Grove 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 0.96 per place 150 first choices 157 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 157 first choices 156 places 2017/18 1.01 per place 175 first choices 174 places 2018/19 1.19 per place 214 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.31 per place 239 first choices 182 places 2020/21 1.33 per place 281 first choices 212 places 2021/22 1.05 per place 223 first choices 212 places 2022/23 1.32 per place 278 first choices 211 places 2023/24 1.54 per place 316 first choices 205 places 2024/25 1.39 per place 287 first choices 206 places 2025/26 1.28 per place 264 first choices 206 places 2026/27 1.45 per place 298 first choices 206 places
First preferences per place at Chestnut Grove Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 298 first preferences for 206 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chestnut Grove Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 157 150 85 0.96
2016/17 156 157 89 1.01
2017/18 174 175 105 1.01
2018/19 180 214 103 1.19
2019/20 182 239 120 1.31
2020/21 212 281 152 1.33
2021/22 212 223 120 1.05
2022/23 211 278 142 1.32
2023/24 205 316 137 1.54
2024/25 206 287 140 1.39
2025/26 206 264 126 1.28
2026/27 206 298 133 1.45

Places offered

206

in 2026/27

Named first choice

298

1,583 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

44.6%

133 of 298

Offers to families outside the council

46%

95 of 206 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

1,026

97.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

24

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

412

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 Chestnut Grove 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 Chestnut Grove Academy reported 24 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.7% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chestnut Grove Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 932 places 907 on roll 2012/13 932 places 892 on roll 2013/14 932 places 954 on roll 2014/15 1,035 places 969 on roll 2015/16 1,035 places 955 on roll 2016/17 1,035 places 971 on roll 2017/18 1,025 places 993 on roll 2018/19 1,025 places 1,064 on roll 2020/21 1,025 places 1,151 on roll 2021/22 1,270 places 1,184 on roll 2022/23 1,270 places 1,272 on roll 2023/24 1,270 places 1,311 on roll 2024/25 1,462 places 1,316 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 converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Wandsworth

Postcode SW12 8JZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136883).

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.