School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The University of Birmingham School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 167 families who named The University of Birmingham School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 147 and 285 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Birmingham actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 11 years of official figures.

1.94

first choices for every place available

285 first preferences for 147 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The University of Birmingham School

There is no published appeal success rate for The University of Birmingham 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 Birmingham 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 Birmingham, 10.8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 245 of 2,271 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 Birmingham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Birmingham 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

The University of Birmingham School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 11 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at The University of Birmingham School, 2016/17 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 16/17 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 2016/17 2.75 per place 413 first choices 150 places 2017/18 2.84 per place 420 first choices 148 places 2018/19 2.43 per place 357 first choices 147 places 2019/20 1.98 per place 291 first choices 147 places 2020/21 1.97 per place 292 first choices 148 places 2021/22 1.67 per place 256 first choices 153 places 2022/23 1.67 per place 247 first choices 148 places 2023/24 1.8 per place 270 first choices 150 places 2024/25 1.69 per place 293 first choices 173 places 2025/26 1.71 per place 253 first choices 148 places 2026/27 1.94 per place 285 first choices 147 places
First preferences per place at The University of Birmingham School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 285 first preferences for 147 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The University of Birmingham School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2016/17 150 413 112 2.75
2017/18 148 420 124 2.84
2018/19 147 357 115 2.43
2019/20 147 291 112 1.98
2020/21 148 292 115 1.97
2021/22 153 256 120 1.67
2022/23 148 247 113 1.67
2023/24 150 270 116 1.8
2024/25 173 293 120 1.69
2025/26 148 253 109 1.71
2026/27 147 285 118 1.94

Places offered

147

in 2026/27

Named first choice

285

1,588 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

41.4%

118 of 285

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 147 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

853

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

771

90.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

82

across Years 7 to 11

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 The University of Birmingham 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 The University of Birmingham School reported 82 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 90.4% 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, 2015/16 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The University of Birmingham School from 2015/16 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2015/16 1,150 places 330 on roll 2016/17 1,150 places 616 on roll 2017/18 1,150 places 702 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 800 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 1,091 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,153 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,166 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,185 on roll 2024/25 1,253 places 1,174 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Birmingham

Postcode B29 6QU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140863).

Other contested secondary schools in Birmingham

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.