School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Beechen Cliff School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 91 families who named Beechen Cliff School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 172 and 256 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Bath and North East Somerset actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

1.49

first choices for every place available

256 first preferences for 172 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Beechen Cliff School

There is no published appeal success rate for Beechen Cliff School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Bath and North East Somerset as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Bath and North East Somerset, 51.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 37 of 72 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Bath and North East Somerset.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bath and North East Somerset ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

Beechen Cliff School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Beechen Cliff School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.24 per place 215 first choices 173 places 2016/17 1.37 per place 241 first choices 176 places 2017/18 1.39 per place 242 first choices 174 places 2018/19 1.83 per place 308 first choices 168 places 2019/20 1.05 per place 178 first choices 169 places 2020/21 1.09 per place 182 first choices 167 places 2021/22 1.01 per place 174 first choices 173 places 2022/23 1.09 per place 185 first choices 169 places 2023/24 0.91 per place 158 first choices 173 places 2024/25 1 per place 174 first choices 174 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 165 first choices 166 places 2026/27 1.49 per place 256 first choices 172 places
First preferences per place at Beechen Cliff School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 256 first preferences for 172 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Beechen Cliff School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 173 215 165 1.24
2016/17 176 241 173 1.37
2017/18 174 242 168 1.39
2018/19 168 308 161 1.83
2019/20 169 178 152 1.05
2020/21 167 182 149 1.09
2021/22 173 174 150 1.01
2022/23 169 185 151 1.09
2023/24 173 158 145 0.91
2024/25 174 174 159 1
2025/26 166 165 146 0.99
2026/27 172 256 165 1.49

Places offered

172

in 2026/27

Named first choice

256

421 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

64.5%

165 of 256

Offers to families outside the council

10%

17 of 172 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 136520.

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

655

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

838

127.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

183

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

400

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that Beechen Cliff School has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures Beechen Cliff School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Beechen Cliff School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,077 places 1,108 on roll 2011/12 1,131 places 1,128 on roll 2012/13 1,131 places 1,129 on roll 2013/14 1,131 places 1,171 on roll 2014/15 1,131 places 1,222 on roll 2015/16 1,131 places 1,289 on roll 2016/17 1,131 places 1,284 on roll 2017/18 1,131 places 1,314 on roll 2018/19 1,156 places 1,308 on roll 2020/21 1,156 places 1,271 on roll 2021/22 1,156 places 1,308 on roll 2022/23 1,055 places 1,280 on roll 2023/24 1,055 places 1,214 on roll 2024/25 1,055 places 1,224 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bath and North East Somerset

Postcode BA2 4RE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146972).

Other contested secondary schools in Bath and North East Somerset

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.