School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The St Marylebone CofE School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 233 families who named The St Marylebone CofE School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 160 and 376 put it first.

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

2.35

first choices for every place available

376 first preferences for 160 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The St Marylebone CofE School

There is no published appeal success rate for The St Marylebone CofE 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 Westminster 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 Westminster, 5.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 8 of 152 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 Westminster.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Westminster 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 St Marylebone CofE 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 St Marylebone CofE School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.6 per place 359 first choices 138 places 2016/17 2.61 per place 378 first choices 145 places 2017/18 2.41 per place 350 first choices 145 places 2018/19 2.51 per place 404 first choices 161 places 2019/20 2.21 per place 360 first choices 163 places 2020/21 2.19 per place 355 first choices 162 places 2021/22 2.25 per place 362 first choices 161 places 2022/23 2.25 per place 366 first choices 163 places 2023/24 1.89 per place 306 first choices 162 places 2024/25 1.91 per place 317 first choices 166 places 2025/26 1.93 per place 317 first choices 164 places 2026/27 2.35 per place 376 first choices 160 places
First preferences per place at The St Marylebone CofE School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 376 first preferences for 160 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The St Marylebone CofE School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 138 359 118 2.6
2016/17 145 378 132 2.61
2017/18 145 350 125 2.41
2018/19 161 404 136 2.51
2019/20 163 360 139 2.21
2020/21 162 355 144 2.19
2021/22 161 362 143 2.25
2022/23 163 366 148 2.25
2023/24 162 306 147 1.89
2024/25 166 317 136 1.91
2025/26 164 317 145 1.93
2026/27 160 376 143 2.35

Places offered

160

in 2026/27

Named first choice

376

901 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

38%

143 of 376

Offers to families outside the council

64%

103 of 160 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

822

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

832

101.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

10

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

380

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 St Marylebone CofE 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 St Marylebone CofE 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 The St Marylebone CofE School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,025 places 1,047 on roll 2012/13 1,025 places 1,068 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 1,057 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 1,070 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 1,072 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 1,075 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 1,091 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 1,119 on roll 2020/21 1,202 places 1,153 on roll 2021/22 1,202 places 1,166 on roll 2022/23 1,202 places 1,168 on roll 2023/24 1,202 places 1,177 on roll 2024/25 1,202 places 1,168 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Westminster

Postcode W1U 5BA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137353).

Other contested secondary schools in Westminster

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.