School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chew Valley School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 23 families who named Chew Valley School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 200 and 211 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.

1.05

first choices for every place available

211 first preferences for 200 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chew Valley School

There is no published appeal success rate for Chew Valley 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

Chew Valley School turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 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 Chew Valley 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 1.05 per place 203 first choices 194 places 2016/17 0.9 per place 178 first choices 197 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 204 first choices 208 places 2018/19 1.05 per place 217 first choices 207 places 2019/20 0.99 per place 200 first choices 203 places 2020/21 1.03 per place 213 first choices 207 places 2021/22 0.96 per place 202 first choices 210 places 2022/23 1.09 per place 226 first choices 208 places 2023/24 1 per place 205 first choices 205 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 195 first choices 199 places 2025/26 1.03 per place 210 first choices 203 places 2026/27 1.05 per place 211 first choices 200 places
First preferences per place at Chew Valley School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 211 first preferences for 200 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chew Valley School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 194 203 189 1.05
2016/17 197 178 178 0.9
2017/18 208 204 191 0.98
2018/19 207 217 183 1.05
2019/20 203 200 173 0.99
2020/21 207 213 197 1.03
2021/22 210 202 193 0.96
2022/23 208 226 199 1.09
2023/24 205 205 203 1
2024/25 199 195 187 0.98
2025/26 203 210 194 1.03
2026/27 200 211 188 1.05

Places offered

200

in 2026/27

Named first choice

211

344 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.1%

188 of 211

Offers to families outside the council

41%

82 of 200 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 109306.

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

1,122

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,029

91.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

93

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

192

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 Chew Valley 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 Chew Valley School reported 93 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91.7% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chew Valley School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,253 places 1,173 on roll 2010/11 1,255 places 1,177 on roll 2011/12 1,249 places 1,195 on roll 2012/13 1,261 places 1,170 on roll 2013/14 1,245 places 1,160 on roll 2014/15 1,241 places 1,151 on roll 2015/16 1,336 places 1,146 on roll 2016/17 1,325 places 1,123 on roll 2017/18 1,336 places 1,114 on roll 2018/19 1,336 places 1,092 on roll 2020/21 1,336 places 1,132 on roll 2021/22 1,336 places 1,154 on roll 2022/23 1,336 places 1,164 on roll 2023/24 1,336 places 1,202 on roll 2024/25 1,314 places 1,182 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 BS40 8QB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145482).

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.