School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Denefield School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 30 families who named Denefield School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 203 and 217 put it first.

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

1.07

first choices for every place available

217 first preferences for 203 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Denefield School

There is no published appeal success rate for Denefield 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 West Berkshire 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 West Berkshire, 25.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 36 of 139 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 West Berkshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not West Berkshire 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

Denefield School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Denefield 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 1.25 per place 238 first choices 191 places 2016/17 1.07 per place 212 first choices 199 places 2017/18 1 per place 201 first choices 200 places 2018/19 1.27 per place 253 first choices 199 places 2019/20 1.38 per place 271 first choices 197 places 2020/21 1.11 per place 219 first choices 198 places 2021/22 0.94 per place 182 first choices 194 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 230 first choices 196 places 2023/24 0.99 per place 199 first choices 200 places 2024/25 1.08 per place 212 first choices 196 places 2025/26 1 per place 209 first choices 208 places 2026/27 1.07 per place 217 first choices 203 places
First preferences per place at Denefield School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 217 first preferences for 203 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Denefield School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 191 238 181 1.25
2016/17 199 212 180 1.07
2017/18 200 201 180 1
2018/19 199 253 184 1.27
2019/20 197 271 189 1.38
2020/21 198 219 180 1.11
2021/22 194 182 173 0.94
2022/23 196 230 180 1.17
2023/24 200 199 181 0.99
2024/25 196 212 181 1.08
2025/26 208 209 185 1
2026/27 203 217 187 1.07

Places offered

203

in 2026/27

Named first choice

217

437 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.2%

187 of 217

Offers to families outside the council

45%

92 of 203 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

1,164

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

962

82.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

202

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

167

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 Denefield 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 Denefield School reported 202 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 82.6% 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 Denefield School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,137 places 1,005 on roll 2012/13 1,137 places 1,001 on roll 2013/14 1,137 places 1,005 on roll 2014/15 1,137 places 1,001 on roll 2015/16 1,137 places 1,024 on roll 2016/17 1,137 places 1,053 on roll 2017/18 1,137 places 1,102 on roll 2018/19 1,137 places 1,138 on roll 2020/21 1,137 places 1,130 on roll 2021/22 1,137 places 1,123 on roll 2022/23 1,137 places 1,101 on roll 2023/24 1,137 places 1,114 on roll 2024/25 1,331 places 1,138 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
West Berkshire

Postcode RG31 6XY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137777).

Other contested secondary schools in West Berkshire

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.