School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Eden Boys' School, Bolton?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 80 families who named Eden Boys' School, Bolton as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 116 and 192 put it first.

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

1.66

first choices for every place available

192 first preferences for 116 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Eden Boys' School, Bolton

There is no published appeal success rate for Eden Boys' School, Bolton, 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

Eden Boys' School, Bolton 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 Eden Boys' School, Bolton, 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 1.51 per place 151 first choices 100 places 2016/17 1.21 per place 144 first choices 119 places 2017/18 1.67 per place 197 first choices 118 places 2018/19 1.48 per place 184 first choices 124 places 2019/20 2 per place 244 first choices 122 places 2020/21 1.91 per place 235 first choices 123 places 2021/22 2.11 per place 262 first choices 124 places 2022/23 1.98 per place 245 first choices 124 places 2023/24 1.98 per place 243 first choices 123 places 2024/25 1.82 per place 216 first choices 119 places 2025/26 1.85 per place 224 first choices 121 places 2026/27 1.66 per place 192 first choices 116 places
First preferences per place at Eden Boys' School, Bolton. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 192 first preferences for 116 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Eden Boys' School, Bolton, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 100 151 94 1.51
2016/17 119 144 114 1.21
2017/18 118 197 116 1.67
2018/19 124 184 118 1.48
2019/20 122 244 107 2
2020/21 123 235 117 1.91
2021/22 124 262 123 2.11
2022/23 124 245 120 1.98
2023/24 123 243 119 1.98
2024/25 119 216 110 1.82
2025/26 121 224 115 1.85
2026/27 116 192 112 1.66

Places offered

116

in 2026/27

Named first choice

192

348 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

58.3%

112 of 192

Offers to families outside the council

2%

2 of 116 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

621

88.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

79

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 Eden Boys' School, Bolton 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 Eden Boys' School, Bolton reported 79 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 88.7% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Eden Boys' School, Bolton from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 700 places 155 on roll 2015/16 700 places 267 on roll 2016/17 800 places 381 on roll 2017/18 800 places 505 on roll 2018/19 800 places 578 on roll 2020/21 700 places 615 on roll 2021/22 700 places 617 on roll 2022/23 700 places 622 on roll 2023/24 700 places 621 on roll 2024/25 700 places 621 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bolton

Postcode BL1 3QE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140959).

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.