School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Canon Slade School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 24 families who named Canon Slade School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 293 and 294 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

first choices for every place available

294 first preferences for 293 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Canon Slade School

There is no published appeal success rate for Canon Slade 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

Canon Slade School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Canon Slade 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 1.13 per place 293 first choices 260 places 2016/17 1.46 per place 393 first choices 270 places 2017/18 1.1 per place 296 first choices 270 places 2018/19 1.27 per place 375 first choices 296 places 2019/20 1.28 per place 382 first choices 298 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 353 first choices 297 places 2021/22 1.26 per place 372 first choices 295 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 361 first choices 297 places 2023/24 1.27 per place 375 first choices 295 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 291 first choices 294 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 320 first choices 297 places 2026/27 1 per place 294 first choices 293 places
First preferences per place at Canon Slade School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 294 first preferences for 293 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Canon Slade School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 260 293 255 1.13
2016/17 270 393 268 1.46
2017/18 270 296 261 1.1
2018/19 296 375 289 1.27
2019/20 298 382 290 1.28
2020/21 297 353 288 1.19
2021/22 295 372 289 1.26
2022/23 297 361 292 1.22
2023/24 295 375 287 1.27
2024/25 294 291 273 0.99
2025/26 297 320 283 1.08
2026/27 293 294 270 1

Places offered

293

in 2026/27

Named first choice

294

769 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.8%

270 of 294

Offers to families outside the council

19%

57 of 293 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 105267.

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

1,500

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,481

98.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

19

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

340

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 Canon Slade 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 Canon Slade School reported 19 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.7% 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 Canon Slade School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,688 places 1,705 on roll 2010/11 1,615 places 1,674 on roll 2011/12 1,557 places 1,684 on roll 2012/13 1,665 places 1,679 on roll 2013/14 1,665 places 1,675 on roll 2014/15 1,665 places 1,691 on roll 2015/16 1,665 places 1,666 on roll 2016/17 1,674 places 1,664 on roll 2017/18 1,685 places 1,679 on roll 2018/19 1,685 places 1,686 on roll 2020/21 1,840 places 1,749 on roll 2021/22 1,840 places 1,749 on roll 2022/23 1,840 places 1,757 on roll 2023/24 1,840 places 1,747 on roll 2024/25 1,840 places 1,739 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bolton

Postcode BL2 3BP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144044).

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.