School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 16 families who named Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: 126 put it first and 110 of them were offered one.

Below: what an appeal in Blackburn with Darwen actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

16

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

126 first preferences for 167 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Queen Elizabeth's Grammar 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 Blackburn with Darwen 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 Blackburn with Darwen, 9.8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 58 of 594 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 Blackburn with Darwen.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Blackburn with Darwen 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

Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 3 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 Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.9 1.8 2.6 3.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 3.29 per place 263 first choices 80 places 2016/17 2.54 per place 292 first choices 115 places 2017/18 1.98 per place 222 first choices 112 places 2018/19 1.22 per place 122 first choices 100 places 2019/20 1.23 per place 134 first choices 109 places 2020/21 0.97 per place 116 first choices 120 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 131 first choices 109 places 2022/23 1.21 per place 126 first choices 104 places 2023/24 1.28 per place 131 first choices 102 places 2024/25 1.05 per place 173 first choices 165 places 2025/26 0.75 per place 115 first choices 153 places 2026/27 0.75 per place 126 first choices 167 places
First preferences per place at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 126 first preferences for 167 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar 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 80 263 74 3.29
2016/17 115 292 100 2.54
2017/18 112 222 98 1.98
2018/19 100 122 72 1.22
2019/20 109 134 74 1.23
2020/21 120 116 79 0.97
2021/22 109 131 75 1.2
2022/23 104 126 67 1.21
2023/24 102 131 71 1.28
2024/25 165 173 124 1.05
2025/26 153 115 102 0.75
2026/27 167 126 110 0.75

Places offered

167

in 2026/27

Named first choice

126

551 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

87.3%

110 of 126

Offers to families outside the council

14%

23 of 167 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

700

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

716

102.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

16

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

300

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 Queen Elizabeth's Grammar 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 Queen Elizabeth's Grammar 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 1,205 places 931 on roll 2015/16 1,205 places 1,028 on roll 2016/17 1,205 places 1,041 on roll 2017/18 1,205 places 1,107 on roll 2018/19 1,205 places 1,138 on roll 2020/21 1,205 places 1,248 on roll 2021/22 1,392 places 1,276 on roll 2022/23 1,392 places 1,278 on roll 2023/24 1,000 places 866 on roll 2024/25 1,000 places 872 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
Blackburn with Darwen

Postcode BB2 6DF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141165).

Other contested secondary schools in Blackburn with Darwen

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.