School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Willink School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 18 families who named The Willink School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 201 and 214 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.

1.06

first choices for every place available

214 first preferences for 201 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Willink School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Willink 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 Willink School turned first-choice families away in 11 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 The Willink 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 1.21 per place 215 first choices 177 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 179 first choices 177 places 2017/18 1.03 per place 180 first choices 174 places 2018/19 1.21 per place 232 first choices 192 places 2019/20 1.19 per place 245 first choices 206 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 201 first choices 204 places 2021/22 1.15 per place 230 first choices 200 places 2022/23 1.19 per place 247 first choices 207 places 2023/24 1.15 per place 240 first choices 208 places 2024/25 1.11 per place 222 first choices 200 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 222 first choices 195 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 214 first choices 201 places
First preferences per place at The Willink School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 214 first preferences for 201 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Willink School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 177 215 173 1.21
2016/17 177 179 174 1.01
2017/18 174 180 166 1.03
2018/19 192 232 189 1.21
2019/20 206 245 196 1.19
2020/21 204 201 188 0.99
2021/22 200 230 184 1.15
2022/23 207 247 200 1.19
2023/24 208 240 205 1.15
2024/25 200 222 193 1.11
2025/26 195 222 184 1.14
2026/27 201 214 196 1.06

Places offered

201

in 2026/27

Named first choice

214

345 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.6%

196 of 214

Offers to families outside the council

10%

21 of 201 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

1,040

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,030

99% of capacity

Unfilled places

10

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

230

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 Willink 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 Willink School reported 10 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99% 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 Willink School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 995 places 952 on roll 2010/11 995 places 1,003 on roll 2011/12 995 places 1,027 on roll 2012/13 995 places 1,006 on roll 2013/14 1,044 places 991 on roll 2014/15 1,044 places 1,025 on roll 2015/16 1,068 places 1,033 on roll 2016/17 1,105 places 1,010 on roll 2017/18 1,105 places 1,028 on roll 2018/19 1,105 places 1,084 on roll 2020/21 1,198 places 1,150 on roll 2021/22 1,198 places 1,205 on roll 2022/23 1,270 places 1,238 on roll 2023/24 1,270 places 1,255 on roll 2024/25 1,270 places 1,237 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
West Berkshire

Postcode RG7 3XJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 110048).

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.