Just flagging the attached as we approach school allocation day for secondary schools in England and Wales - I think that the info about appeals is misleading.
Firstly, it is not correct to speak of “appealing against a secondary school place”. Parents or carers are strongly advised to accept the place they are offered – they can then appeal for the place they would prefer – this is important as the focus of their appeal should be what the preferred school can offer, not what they don’t like about the offered school.
Secondly, for a secondary school appeal to succeed, as I understand it, the applicant has to show that the advantage to the student of attending the school would outweigh the disadvantage to the school and its other pupils. So it is not the case that appeals only succeed if relevant circumstances were not considered.
For example, if a student were very musical with a strong history of playing an instrument, and the offered school had no musical provision – did not offer music GCSE, had no orchestra or band – but the offered school did, that might be enough to earn them a place (maybe not, true, but it's worth a shot). This information would not have been on the application form (or very likely not) so the school did not fail to consider it.
Not saying that all appeals succeed of course - but it is more worth while than the article suggests. Also there are lots of experts on this board!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64662613