School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bolton Muslim Girls School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 54 families who named Bolton Muslim Girls School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 177 and 228 put it first.

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

1.29

first choices for every place available

228 first preferences for 177 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bolton Muslim Girls School

There is no published appeal success rate for Bolton Muslim Girls 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 Bolton 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 Bolton, 22% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 192 of 873 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 Bolton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bolton 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

Bolton Muslim Girls School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 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 Bolton Muslim Girls School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.5 per place 180 first choices 120 places 2016/17 1.55 per place 185 first choices 119 places 2017/18 1.77 per place 212 first choices 120 places 2018/19 1.81 per place 217 first choices 120 places 2019/20 2.13 per place 256 first choices 120 places 2020/21 1.85 per place 277 first choices 150 places 2021/22 1.89 per place 281 first choices 149 places 2022/23 1.79 per place 269 first choices 150 places 2023/24 1.77 per place 264 first choices 149 places 2024/25 1.72 per place 255 first choices 148 places 2025/26 1.74 per place 258 first choices 148 places 2026/27 1.29 per place 228 first choices 177 places
First preferences per place at Bolton Muslim Girls School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 228 first preferences for 177 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bolton Muslim Girls School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 180 116 1.5
2016/17 119 185 117 1.55
2017/18 120 212 118 1.77
2018/19 120 217 114 1.81
2019/20 120 256 119 2.13
2020/21 150 277 150 1.85
2021/22 149 281 147 1.89
2022/23 150 269 148 1.79
2023/24 149 264 149 1.77
2024/25 148 255 147 1.72
2025/26 148 258 147 1.74
2026/27 177 228 174 1.29

Places offered

177

in 2026/27

Named first choice

228

343 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

76.3%

174 of 228

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 177 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 135096.

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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

747

99.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

3

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Bolton Muslim Girls 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 Bolton Muslim Girls School reported 3 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.6% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Bolton Muslim Girls School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 330 places 457 on roll 2010/11 482 places 480 on roll 2011/12 477 places 508 on roll 2012/13 477 places 553 on roll 2013/14 477 places 581 on roll 2014/15 457 places 594 on roll 2015/16 463 places 593 on roll 2016/17 463 places 596 on roll 2017/18 463 places 601 on roll 2018/19 597 places 605 on roll 2020/21 750 places 633 on roll 2021/22 750 places 661 on roll 2022/23 750 places 685 on roll 2023/24 750 places 720 on roll 2024/25 750 places 747 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.

This school's admission rules have been challenged

Separately from appeals, anyone can object that a school's admission arrangements break the School Admissions Code. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator decides those objections and publishes a determination naming the school. Bolton Muslim Girls School has been the subject of one such determination. The adjudicator found its arrangements did not comply with the Code.

Adjudicator determinations naming Bolton Muslim Girls School. Each links to the full determination on GOV.UK.
Determined Outcome Determination
8 January 2015 Arrangements did not comply ADA2785

This is not a prediction about your appeal. An objection is about the rules the school admits by; an appeal is your case about your child. No school-level appeal figures are published for any school in England, and a determination does not create any. An upheld objection also requires the school to revise its arrangements, so a finding from an earlier year describes rules that had to change — what matters for your appeal is the arrangements for the year you applied under, and whether they were applied to you correctly.

When a mistake in the process is a ground for appeal →

Office of the Schools Adjudicator, published determinations.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bolton

Postcode BL3 6TQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142340).

Other contested secondary schools in Bolton

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.