School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Downs School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 53 families who named The Downs School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 204 and 249 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.

1.22

first choices for every place available

249 first preferences for 204 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Downs School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Downs 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

The Downs School 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 The Downs 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 1.4 per place 247 first choices 176 places 2016/17 1.31 per place 231 first choices 177 places 2017/18 1.42 per place 249 first choices 175 places 2018/19 1.08 per place 223 first choices 207 places 2019/20 1.2 per place 249 first choices 207 places 2020/21 1.14 per place 237 first choices 207 places 2021/22 1.26 per place 262 first choices 208 places 2022/23 1.21 per place 250 first choices 206 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 234 first choices 205 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 259 first choices 205 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 244 first choices 201 places 2026/27 1.22 per place 249 first choices 204 places
First preferences per place at The Downs School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 249 first preferences for 204 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Downs School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 176 247 171 1.4
2016/17 177 231 170 1.31
2017/18 175 249 174 1.42
2018/19 207 223 196 1.08
2019/20 207 249 202 1.2
2020/21 207 237 201 1.14
2021/22 208 262 205 1.26
2022/23 206 250 202 1.21
2023/24 205 234 193 1.14
2024/25 205 259 196 1.26
2025/26 201 244 190 1.21
2026/27 204 249 196 1.22

Places offered

204

in 2026/27

Named first choice

249

523 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.7%

196 of 249

Offers to families outside the council

7%

14 of 204 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 110102.

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

1,169

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,048

89.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

121

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

305

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 The Downs 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 The Downs School reported 121 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.6% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Downs School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,017 places 1,077 on roll 2010/11 1,211 places 1,137 on roll 2011/12 1,211 places 1,157 on roll 2012/13 1,211 places 1,161 on roll 2013/14 1,161 places 1,209 on roll 2014/15 1,161 places 1,236 on roll 2015/16 1,161 places 1,208 on roll 2016/17 1,161 places 1,198 on roll 2017/18 1,161 places 1,176 on roll 2018/19 1,161 places 1,215 on roll 2020/21 1,355 places 1,304 on roll 2021/22 1,355 places 1,328 on roll 2022/23 1,355 places 1,360 on roll 2023/24 1,355 places 1,405 on roll 2024/25 1,474 places 1,439 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 RG20 6AD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 151957).

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.