Secondary school offers in Hertfordshire: offer day 2027

National Offer Day Monday 1 March 2027 · 78 secondary schools · first-choice odds, waiting lists and appeals

How likely is a first choice here?

For September 2026 entry, 77.5% of families living in Hertfordshire were offered their first-choice secondary school, against 83.6% across England. 684 families (5.1%) were offered none of the schools they named. Hertfordshire ranks 43 of 150 councils in England, hardest first (see every council).

37 of its 78 secondary schools had more first-choice applications than places.

The most sought-after, by first-choice applications per place offered: Hockerill Anglo-European College (2.5 per place), Parmiter's School (2.4 per place), Watford Grammar School for Boys (1.9 per place), Dame Alice Owen's School (1.8 per place), Watford Grammar School for Girls (1.8 per place).

If you didn't get your first choice

1. Accept the place you were offered by the date in your offer letter. Accepting it does not affect a waiting list or an appeal, and a place that isn't accepted can be withdrawn.
2. Get on the waiting lists you want. Every school must keep one until at least 31 December of the year your child starts. It is ranked by the school's admission rules, not by when you joined, so a family moving closer can go above you. Some councils add you automatically for schools you ranked higher than the one offered; your offer letter says which.
3. Decide whether to appeal. You can appeal for every school that refused your child. You get at least 20 school days from the offer to lodge it, and on-time appeals must be heard within 40 school days of that deadline. The figures below show how often appeals succeed here.
4. Look at schools that took lower preferences. These are the likeliest to have room now.

Schools that took children who ranked them lower

For September 2026 entry these 40 schools offered more places than they had first-choice applications, so some went to families who put them second or lower. They are the likeliest to have room after offer day; ask Hertfordshire or the school.

• Barclay Academy Stevenage
• Barnwell School Stevenage
• Birchwood High School Bishop's Stortford
• Bushey Meads School Bushey
• Croxley Danes School Rickmansworth
• Fearnhill School Letchworth
• Future Academies Watford Watford
• Goffs - Churchgate Academy Waltham Cross
• Gracewood Academy Potters Bar
• Haileybury Turnford Waltham Cross
• Hertswood Academy Borehamwood
• John F Kennedy Catholic School Hemel Hempstead
• Katherine Warington School Harpenden
• King James Academy Royston Royston
• Kings Langley School Kings Langley
• Laureate Academy Hemel Hempstead
• Leventhorpe Sawbridgeworth
• Loreto College St Albans
• Onslow St Audrey's School Hatfield
• Ridgeway Academy Welwyn Garden City
• Robert Barclay Academy Hoddesdon
• Saint Joan of Arc Catholic School Rickmansworth
• St Albans Girls' School St Albans
• St Mary's Catholic School Bishop's Stortford
• St Mary's Church of England High School (VA) Waltham Cross
• The Adeyfield Academy Hemel Hempstead
• The Astley Cooper School Hemel Hempstead
• The Grange Academy Bushey
• The Highfield School Letchworth Garden City
• The John Warner School Hoddesdon
• The Knights Templar School Baldock
• The Marlborough Science Academy St Albans
• The Nobel School Stevenage
• The Priory School Hitchin
• The Reach Free School Rickmansworth
• The Sele School Hertford
• Townsend Church of England School St Albans
• Verulam School St Albans
• Westfield Academy Watford
• Yavneh College Borehamwood

How Hertfordshire decides places

'Priority area' also explicit for secondary/upper schools.

This covers the schools Hertfordshire sets the rules for. Academies, free schools and faith schools set their own; check each school's admission arrangements. Hertfordshire admissions.

Every secondary school: demand for 2026 entry

Sorted by first-choice applications per place, the most contested first.

Places offered is the number of offers made on national offer day, and first choices offered the share of families who put the school first and got it (Department for Education, September 2026 entry). Last distance offered is published by Hertfordshire, in a straight line from home to school: ¹ distance of the most distant child admitted under the last admission rule places were offered on, among children in the school's priority area for whom it is not their nearest school. ² distance of the most distant child admitted under the last admission rule places were offered on, among children in the school's priority area for whom it is their nearest school. ³ distance of the most distant child admitted under the last admission rule places were offered on, by distance. ⁴ distance of the most distant child admitted under the last admission rule places were offered on, among children living outside the school's priority area (everyone in it was offered a place). ⁵ distance of the most distant child admitted under the last admission rule places were offered on, among children for whom it is their nearest school. ⁶ distance of the most distant child admitted under the last admission rule places were offered on, among children living in the school's priority area. It moves every year with who applies, and siblings and other priority groups are offered places first.

Appeals in Hertfordshire

Secondary school appeals across all of Hertfordshire, from the Department for Education. Appeals are not published school by school. Across England in 2025/26, 19.5% of 27,084 secondary appeals heard were upheld. How appeal odds differ between councils.

More for Hertfordshire

• Every school in Hertfordshire, with catchment areas and Ofsted
• Starting school in Hertfordshire
• Map of schools near your home, with your chance of a place where we have the data