School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Essa Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 34 families who named Essa Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 200 and 222 put it first.

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

1.11

first choices for every place available

222 first preferences for 200 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Essa Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Essa Academy, 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

Essa Academy turned first-choice families away in 3 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 2 of those years. In the other 1 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 Essa Academy, 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 0.7 per place 111 first choices 159 places 2016/17 0.72 per place 114 first choices 158 places 2017/18 0.67 per place 120 first choices 179 places 2018/19 0.58 per place 122 first choices 210 places 2019/20 0.69 per place 124 first choices 179 places 2020/21 0.62 per place 119 first choices 191 places 2021/22 0.71 per place 149 first choices 209 places 2022/23 0.75 per place 171 first choices 229 places 2023/24 0.77 per place 182 first choices 237 places 2024/25 1.05 per place 214 first choices 203 places 2025/26 0.96 per place 196 first choices 204 places 2026/27 1.11 per place 222 first choices 200 places
First preferences per place at Essa Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 222 first preferences for 200 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Essa Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 159 111 111 0.7
2016/17 158 114 114 0.72
2017/18 179 120 116 0.67
2018/19 210 122 122 0.58
2019/20 179 124 114 0.69
2020/21 191 119 119 0.62
2021/22 209 149 148 0.71
2022/23 229 171 168 0.75
2023/24 237 182 179 0.77
2024/25 203 214 169 1.05
2025/26 204 196 172 0.96
2026/27 200 222 188 1.11

Places offered

200

in 2026/27

Named first choice

222

578 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.7%

188 of 222

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 200 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,081

103% of capacity

Over its capacity by

31

reported as full or beyond

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 Essa Academy 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 Essa Academy 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Essa Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 813 on roll 2010/11 877 places 810 on roll 2011/12 900 places 829 on roll 2012/13 900 places 851 on roll 2013/14 900 places 879 on roll 2014/15 900 places 878 on roll 2015/16 900 places 859 on roll 2016/17 900 places 868 on roll 2017/18 900 places 915 on roll 2018/19 900 places 980 on roll 2020/21 990 places 1,024 on roll 2021/22 990 places 1,058 on roll 2022/23 1,020 places 1,084 on roll 2023/24 1,020 places 1,096 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,081 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bolton

Postcode BL3 3HH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135770).

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.