The 19 hardest state secondary schools to land a place in across Hampshire - with deadline looming

Secondary schools help young people navigate some of the trickiest years of their young lives, as well as readying them for important qualifications like their GCSEs.

That’s why the school they go to has to be the right fit for them. But parents of next year’s new starters may face more competition than expected to get their child a place at their first choice of local school.

Even though the new 2025/26 school year has only just begun, applications for a state-funded secondary school place for next year are already open - and will soon be drawing to a close. This year’s application deadline is October 31. Although families can still apply after that date, their child may have a lower chance of landing an offer from their preferred school. The outcome will be revealed on national offers day - which will fall on March 2 next year.

Amid the current buzz of attending open days and browsing league tables, some parents may also be curious about their child’s chances of getting into the school they want. Just like with primary schools, these odds are generally pretty good. But with just 83.5% of children nationwide getting an offer from their first choice of secondary for the current 2025/26 school year, some will unfortunately miss out.

With this in mind, we’ve taken a look at the Department of Education’s latest data on schools across the Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton council areas, comparing how many parents put each one down as their number one option, with how many first-choice offers each of them ended up sending out.

Here were the county’s hardest secondaries to get into this year: