School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Norton Hill Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 26 families who named Norton Hill Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 279 and 303 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.

1.09

first choices for every place available

303 first preferences for 279 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Norton Hill Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Norton Hill Academy, 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

Norton Hill Academy turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Norton Hill Academy, 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 0.99 per place 267 first choices 270 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 300 first choices 298 places 2017/18 1.06 per place 313 first choices 296 places 2018/19 1 per place 303 first choices 303 places 2019/20 1 per place 340 first choices 341 places 2020/21 1.06 per place 326 first choices 307 places 2021/22 1.47 per place 351 first choices 238 places 2022/23 0.94 per place 283 first choices 300 places 2023/24 0.98 per place 285 first choices 291 places 2024/25 1.22 per place 332 first choices 273 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 260 first choices 268 places 2026/27 1.09 per place 303 first choices 279 places
First preferences per place at Norton Hill Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 303 first preferences for 279 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Norton Hill Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 270 267 267 0.99
2016/17 298 300 293 1.01
2017/18 296 313 293 1.06
2018/19 303 303 297 1
2019/20 341 340 337 1
2020/21 307 326 302 1.06
2021/22 238 351 234 1.47
2022/23 300 283 283 0.94
2023/24 291 285 285 0.98
2024/25 273 332 267 1.22
2025/26 268 260 260 0.97
2026/27 279 303 277 1.09

Places offered

279

in 2026/27

Named first choice

303

427 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.4%

277 of 303

Offers to families outside the council

10%

28 of 279 offers

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

1,318

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,422

107.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

104

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 Norton Hill Academy 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 Norton Hill Academy 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 Norton Hill Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,621 places 1,515 on roll 2011/12 1,621 places 1,532 on roll 2012/13 1,621 places 1,492 on roll 2013/14 1,621 places 1,502 on roll 2014/15 1,621 places 1,496 on roll 2015/16 1,621 places 1,551 on roll 2016/17 1,621 places 1,589 on roll 2017/18 1,621 places 1,631 on roll 2018/19 1,621 places 1,688 on roll 2020/21 1,721 places 1,832 on roll 2021/22 1,718 places 1,839 on roll 2022/23 1,718 places 1,843 on roll 2023/24 1,718 places 1,817 on roll 2024/25 1,718 places 1,748 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 BA3 4AD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136335).

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.