School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ralph Allen School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 33 families who named Ralph Allen School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 191 and 202 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.

1.06

first choices for every place available

202 first preferences for 191 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ralph Allen School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ralph Allen 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

Ralph Allen School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 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 Ralph Allen 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 0.99 per place 205 first choices 207 places 2016/17 1.02 per place 240 first choices 236 places 2017/18 1.03 per place 241 first choices 235 places 2018/19 1.11 per place 229 first choices 206 places 2019/20 1.27 per place 262 first choices 207 places 2020/21 1.33 per place 275 first choices 206 places 2021/22 1.26 per place 298 first choices 236 places 2022/23 1.25 per place 288 first choices 230 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 276 first choices 233 places 2024/25 1.14 per place 227 first choices 200 places 2025/26 1.3 per place 260 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 202 first choices 191 places
First preferences per place at Ralph Allen School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 202 first preferences for 191 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ralph Allen School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 207 205 181 0.99
2016/17 236 240 213 1.02
2017/18 235 241 195 1.03
2018/19 206 229 148 1.11
2019/20 207 262 188 1.27
2020/21 206 275 191 1.33
2021/22 236 298 214 1.26
2022/23 230 288 213 1.25
2023/24 233 276 211 1.18
2024/25 200 227 184 1.14
2025/26 200 260 191 1.3
2026/27 191 202 169 1.06

Places offered

191

in 2026/27

Named first choice

202

628 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.7%

169 of 202

Offers to families outside the council

6%

12 of 191 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,135

108.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

85

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

250

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 Ralph Allen 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 Ralph Allen 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ralph Allen School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,110 places 1,091 on roll 2013/14 1,110 places 1,098 on roll 2014/15 1,110 places 1,075 on roll 2015/16 1,110 places 1,106 on roll 2016/17 1,110 places 1,149 on roll 2017/18 1,110 places 1,203 on roll 2018/19 1,110 places 1,242 on roll 2020/21 1,300 places 1,354 on roll 2021/22 1,300 places 1,395 on roll 2022/23 1,300 places 1,370 on roll 2023/24 1,300 places 1,381 on roll 2024/25 1,300 places 1,378 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 7AD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138522).

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.