How far Portsmouth schools admitted from
How far away the last child offered a place lived, for 22 Portsmouth schools, from the council's own figures. Tightest first.
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Primary and secondary schools.
Applying for September 2027? Secondary applications close on 31 October 2026, with offers on 1 March 2027; primary applications close on 15 January 2027, with offers on 16 April 2027.
The tightest is St John's Cathedral Catholic Primary School at 0.24 miles in varies; the most far-reaching, Trafalgar School, admitted from 1.72 miles.
Primary schools
| School | Ofsted | Admitted from | Round | How full |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St John's Cathedral Catholic Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 0.24 mi | varies | 113% |
| Westover Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 0.26 mi | varies | 94% |
| Langstone Primary Academy Portsmouth | Good | 0.3 mi | varies | 98% |
| St Swithun's Catholic Primary School Southsea | Ungraded inspection, March 2025: standards maintained | 0.3 mi | varies | 100% |
| Highbury Primary School Portsmouth | Report card | 0.33 mi | varies | 93% |
| Moorings Way Infant School Southsea | Report card | 0.36 mi | varies | 86% |
| New Horizons Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 0.51 mi | varies | 81% |
| Wimborne Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 0.53 mi | varies | 98% |
| Cumberland Infant School Southsea | Good | 0.57 mi | varies | 96% |
| The Victory Primary School Portsmouth | No current grade | 0.63 mi | varies | 78% |
| Copnor Primary School Portsmouth | No current grade | 0.75 mi | varies | 92% |
| Solent Infant School Portsmouth | Ungraded inspection, June 2025: improved significantly | 0.8 mi | varies | 100% |
| St Paul's Catholic Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 0.83 mi | varies | 65% |
| Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 0.93 mi | varies | 99% |
| St Jude's CofE Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 0.99 mi | varies | 97% |
| Gatcombe Park Primary School Portsmouth | Good | 1.18 mi | varies | 97% |
Secondary schools
| School | Ofsted | Admitted from | Round | How full |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Edmund's Catholic School Portsmouth | Outstanding | 0.51 mi | varies | 109% |
| Priory School Southsea | Good | 1.0 mi | varies | 102% |
| Admiral Lord Nelson School Portsmouth | Report card | 1.07 mi | varies | 100% |
| Ark Charter Academy Southsea | No current grade | 1.1 mi | varies | 98% |
| Mayfield School Portsmouth | Inadequate | 1.13 mi | varies | 93% |
| Trafalgar School Portsmouth | Good | 1.72 mi | varies | 103% |
If a place is refused
You can appeal. In 2025, 11 of 84 secondary appeals heard here were allowed (13.1%; England 19.9%), counted for all the council's schools together.
How to read this
Every refusal carries a right of appeal to an independent panel. In Portsmouth, panels heard 84 appeals for secondary places in the 2025 round and allowed 11 of them, 13.1%, against 19.9% across England. These are the council's figures for all its schools together: appeals are not published school by school, so no one can tell you the rate for one named school, and this page will not pretend to.
An infant class appeal, for reception to year 2, can only be allowed on narrow legal grounds, which is why its share is a fraction of the others.
| Appeals in 2025 | Lodged | Heard | Allowed | Share allowed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary | 101 | 84 | 11 | 13.1% |
| Primary | 30 | 17 | 2 | 11.8% of 17 heard |
| Primary (infant classes) | 15 | 7 | 0 | 0.0% of 7 heard |
How every council compares, and what the figures are and are not.
How often children here are out of school
Primary schools here missed 5.2% of sessions in 2024/25 (England 5.2%), and 12.7% of pupils were persistently absent (England 13.0%).
How to read this
In Portsmouth, 5.2% of primary school sessions were missed in 2024/25, about the same as the 5.2% across England. That is days missed. The second figure is children: 12.7% of primary pupils here were persistently absent, meaning they missed a tenth or more of their sessions, about the same as England's 13.0%.
| 2024/25 | Sessions missed | England | Persistently absent | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 5.2% | 5.2% | 12.7% | 13.0% |
| Secondary | 10.1% | 8.4% | 25.7% | 23.4% |
What the figures mean
Persistently absent means missing a tenth or more of their sessions, for any reason, authorised or not. A council's rate is moved by things no school controls, term-time holidays and a bad winter among them, so read it as the weather around the schools rather than a mark against them. Higher or lower is said only where the two rates differ by at least 1 percentage point.
These are Portsmouth's figures for all its schools together. The Department for Education publishes absence by council, not school by school, so no one can give you the rate for one named school from this release. Source: DfE pupil absence in schools in England, explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk. Read on 1 October 2026.
Source: DfE pupil absence in schools in England, by council, not school by school
Reading the numbers
These are distances, not catchment areas, and they move every year.
How to read this
For every oversubscribed school, Portsmouth publishes how far away the last child offered a place lived. A short distance means a school that fills up close to its gates; a long one means places went further afield. The address on the deadline is the one the council uses.
These are not catchment areas: most English schools have none. Each figure is the distance from the school to the home of the furthest child who was offered a place under the distance criterion in that round, as Portsmouth measures it, which is usually a straight line from a fixed point at the home to one at the school. Looked-after children, siblings and, at faith schools, faith criteria come before distance, so a school can fill before distance is reached at all. The figure moves every year with the number of applications. How the whole process works →
Checking an address against these
Each school's page has a checker that measures a postcode against that school's distance. The full property report measures every nearby school at once, alongside sold prices, flood risk and the rest of the house.
Admission distances published by Portsmouth. School details and grades from the Department for Education's register and Ofsted. If a figure looks wrong, tell us and it goes on the accuracy log.