School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chenderit School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 68 families who named Chenderit School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 166 and 229 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

229 first preferences for 166 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chenderit School

There is no published appeal success rate for Chenderit 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 Northamptonshire 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 Northamptonshire, 11.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 112 of 995 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 Northamptonshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not West Northamptonshire 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

Chenderit School turned first-choice families away in 5 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 Chenderit 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 0.95 per place 158 first choices 167 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 164 first choices 176 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 155 first choices 176 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 168 first choices 173 places 2019/20 0.93 per place 167 first choices 179 places 2020/21 1.07 per place 192 first choices 179 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 174 first choices 179 places 2022/23 0.83 per place 148 first choices 179 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 182 first choices 174 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 210 first choices 178 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 205 first choices 169 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 229 first choices 166 places
First preferences per place at Chenderit School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 229 first preferences for 166 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chenderit School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 167 158 147 0.95
2016/17 176 164 154 0.93
2017/18 176 155 153 0.88
2018/19 173 168 156 0.97
2019/20 179 167 156 0.93
2020/21 179 192 164 1.07
2021/22 179 174 158 0.97
2022/23 179 148 145 0.83
2023/24 174 182 164 1.05
2024/25 178 210 164 1.18
2025/26 169 205 161 1.21
2026/27 166 229 161 1.38

Places offered

166

in 2026/27

Named first choice

229

443 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.3%

161 of 229

Offers to families outside the council

17%

29 of 166 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

830

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

886

106.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

56

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

348

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 Chenderit 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 Chenderit School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chenderit School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,173 places 1,165 on roll 2012/13 1,173 places 1,148 on roll 2013/14 1,178 places 1,125 on roll 2014/15 1,178 places 1,080 on roll 2015/16 1,178 places 1,087 on roll 2016/17 1,178 places 1,054 on roll 2017/18 1,178 places 1,017 on roll 2018/19 1,178 places 1,028 on roll 2020/21 1,178 places 1,079 on roll 2021/22 1,178 places 1,063 on roll 2022/23 1,178 places 1,050 on roll 2023/24 1,178 places 1,071 on roll 2024/25 1,178 places 1,075 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 Northamptonshire

Postcode OX17 2QR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137878).

Other contested secondary schools in West Northamptonshire

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.