School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Churchmead Church of England (VA) School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 31 families who named Churchmead Church of England (VA) School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 136 and 144 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

144 first preferences for 136 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Churchmead Church of England (VA) School

There is no published appeal success rate for Churchmead Church of England (VA) 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 Windsor and Maidenhead 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 Windsor and Maidenhead, 21.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 40 of 187 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 Windsor and Maidenhead.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Windsor and Maidenhead 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

Churchmead Church of England (VA) School turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 2 of those years. In the other 3 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Churchmead Church of England (VA) 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 0.54 per place 29 first choices 54 places 2016/17 0.5 per place 31 first choices 62 places 2017/18 0.61 per place 57 first choices 94 places 2018/19 0.61 per place 56 first choices 92 places 2019/20 0.53 per place 44 first choices 83 places 2020/21 0.73 per place 82 first choices 113 places 2021/22 0.8 per place 94 first choices 118 places 2022/23 0.93 per place 100 first choices 108 places 2023/24 1.03 per place 120 first choices 116 places 2024/25 0.87 per place 104 first choices 120 places 2025/26 0.85 per place 100 first choices 118 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 144 first choices 136 places
First preferences per place at Churchmead Church of England (VA) School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 144 first preferences for 136 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Churchmead Church of England (VA) 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 54 29 28 0.54
2016/17 62 31 31 0.5
2017/18 94 57 57 0.61
2018/19 92 56 55 0.61
2019/20 83 44 44 0.53
2020/21 113 82 82 0.73
2021/22 118 94 90 0.8
2022/23 108 100 75 0.93
2023/24 116 120 91 1.03
2024/25 120 104 70 0.87
2025/26 118 100 77 0.85
2026/27 136 144 113 1.06

Places offered

136

in 2026/27

Named first choice

144

309 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.5%

113 of 144

Offers to families outside the council

63%

86 of 136 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

682

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

594

87.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

88

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

31

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 Churchmead Church of England (VA) 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 Churchmead Church of England (VA) School reported 88 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87.1% 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 Churchmead Church of England (VA) School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 656 places 568 on roll 2010/11 700 places 575 on roll 2011/12 700 places 560 on roll 2012/13 744 places 546 on roll 2013/14 744 places 444 on roll 2014/15 742 places 421 on roll 2015/16 744 places 395 on roll 2016/17 713 places 360 on roll 2017/18 713 places 323 on roll 2018/19 713 places 311 on roll 2020/21 713 places 408 on roll 2021/22 713 places 469 on roll 2022/23 713 places 535 on roll 2023/24 713 places 600 on roll 2024/25 713 places 660 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Windsor and Maidenhead

Postcode SL3 9JQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 133580).

Other contested secondary schools in Windsor and Maidenhead

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.