School admission appeal statistics for England
Every figure on this page comes from the Department for Education's annual Admission appeals in England release, covering 10 years to 2025. Nothing here is modelled or estimated.
The headline is stable and unflattering: about one appeal in five succeeds, and that has barely moved in a decade.
of appeals heard in England were upheld
23,926 of 120,991 appeals heard in 2023–2025
Success rate by phase
A secondary appeal and an infant class size appeal are not the same exercise. Infant classes are capped at 30 by statute, so a panel may only uphold an appeal where the arrangements were unlawful, applied wrongly, or the decision was one no reasonable authority would have reached.
Vertical marker shows the England figure for the same phase.
View as a table
| Phase | Heard | Upheld | Rate | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary | 92,126 | 18,903 | 20.5% | — |
| Primary | 28,865 | 5,023 | 17.4% | — |
| Infant class size | 17,594 | 1,724 | 9.8% | — |
Infant class size appeals are a subset of the primary figures, not an additional category.
Ten years of appeals in England
View as a table
| Year | Heard | Upheld | All phases | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 45,784 | 10,192 | 22.3% | 26.3% |
| 2017 | 44,626 | 9,714 | 21.8% | 24.6% |
| 2018 | 44,520 | 9,715 | 21.8% | 23.4% |
| 2019 | 45,855 | 10,177 | 22.2% | 23.3% |
| 2020 | 48,113 | 10,211 | 21.2% | 22.2% |
| 2021 | 41,110 | 7,823 | 19% | 20.1% |
| 2022 | 38,359 | 7,722 | 20.1% | 21.1% |
| 2023 | 40,007 | 7,938 | 19.8% | 20.9% |
| 2024 | 42,345 | 8,490 | 20% | 20.7% |
| 2025 | 38,639 | 7,498 | 19.4% | 19.9% |
The second line is the secondary-only rate, which runs consistently above the all-phase figure because primary appeals — and infant class size appeals in particular — pull the average down.
The postcode lottery
The gap between councils is the most striking thing in the dataset. Over 2023–2025 the highest council rate was roughly 29.7 times the lowest, and both figures rest on hundreds of heard appeals — this is not small-sample noise.
| Council | Heard | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Sunderland | 408 | 59.3% |
| Cumberland | 99 | 55.6% |
| Rotherham | 705 | 52.8% |
| County Durham | 718 | 42.5% |
| Northumberland | 400 | 41.5% |
| Norfolk | 745 | 41.3% |
| Oxfordshire | 754 | 39.3% |
| Kirklees | 1,478 | 38.3% |
| Lincolnshire | 2,139 | 37.3% |
| Central Bedfordshire | 458 | 36.5% |
| Council | Heard | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Brent | 391 | 2% |
| Solihull | 1,020 | 2.9% |
| Tower Hamlets | 945 | 3.3% |
| Newham | 901 | 4% |
| Harrow | 294 | 4.1% |
| Southend-on-Sea | 368 | 4.1% |
| Westminster | 193 | 4.7% |
| Greenwich | 761 | 6.3% |
| Hounslow | 485 | 6.8% |
| Havering | 556 | 7.2% |
Only councils with at least 10 appeals heard are ranked.
By region
| Region | Councils | Heard | Upheld | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North West | 24 | 23,285 | 4,796 | 20.6% |
| South East | 19 | 21,416 | 4,429 | 20.7% |
| West Midlands | 14 | 15,501 | 2,214 | 14.3% |
| London | 32 | 13,704 | 1,263 | 9.2% |
| East Midlands | 10 | 13,386 | 2,842 | 21.2% |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 15 | 12,910 | 3,189 | 24.7% |
| East of England | 11 | 9,910 | 2,127 | 21.5% |
| South West | 14 | 7,015 | 1,844 | 26.3% |
| North East | 12 | 3,864 | 1,222 | 31.6% |
Where the appeals are
Appeals are heavily concentrated. The 20 busiest councils account for about 41% of all appeals heard in England, which is why a national average is a poor guide to what happens where you live.