School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Oldfield School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 74 families who named Oldfield School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 207 and 238 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.

1.15

first choices for every place available

238 first preferences for 207 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Oldfield School

There is no published appeal success rate for Oldfield 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

Oldfield School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 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 Oldfield 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 0.81 per place 177 first choices 218 places 2016/17 0.78 per place 173 first choices 221 places 2017/18 1.34 per place 262 first choices 195 places 2018/19 1.19 per place 233 first choices 196 places 2019/20 1.22 per place 241 first choices 198 places 2020/21 1.06 per place 228 first choices 216 places 2021/22 0.87 per place 170 first choices 195 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 219 first choices 216 places 2023/24 1.1 per place 240 first choices 219 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 259 first choices 191 places 2025/26 0.88 per place 174 first choices 197 places 2026/27 1.15 per place 238 first choices 207 places
First preferences per place at Oldfield School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 238 first preferences for 207 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Oldfield School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 218 177 177 0.81
2016/17 221 173 173 0.78
2017/18 195 262 156 1.34
2018/19 196 233 132 1.19
2019/20 198 241 144 1.22
2020/21 216 228 160 1.06
2021/22 195 170 135 0.87
2022/23 216 219 169 1.01
2023/24 219 240 192 1.1
2024/25 191 259 177 1.36
2025/26 197 174 166 0.88
2026/27 207 238 164 1.15

Places offered

207

in 2026/27

Named first choice

238

728 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.9%

164 of 238

Offers to families outside the council

21%

44 of 207 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

1,077

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,108

102.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

31

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

172

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 Oldfield 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 Oldfield 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 Oldfield School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,036 places 809 on roll 2011/12 1,036 places 771 on roll 2012/13 1,216 places 753 on roll 2013/14 1,216 places 771 on roll 2014/15 1,216 places 852 on roll 2015/16 1,216 places 927 on roll 2016/17 1,216 places 1,041 on roll 2017/18 1,216 places 1,112 on roll 2018/19 1,216 places 1,216 on roll 2020/21 1,216 places 1,264 on roll 2021/22 1,216 places 1,261 on roll 2022/23 1,216 places 1,241 on roll 2023/24 1,216 places 1,266 on roll 2024/25 1,249 places 1,273 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 BA1 9AB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136483).

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.