School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ladybridge High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 16 families who named Ladybridge High School as their first choice did not get a place: 211 put it first and 195 of them were offered one.

Below: what an appeal in Bolton 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

211 first preferences for 230 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ladybridge High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ladybridge High 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

Ladybridge High School turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 2 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 Ladybridge High 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 0.99 per place 178 first choices 179 places 2016/17 0.85 per place 150 first choices 176 places 2017/18 0.96 per place 171 first choices 179 places 2018/19 0.98 per place 204 first choices 209 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 236 first choices 210 places 2020/21 0.83 per place 173 first choices 208 places 2021/22 0.68 per place 138 first choices 202 places 2022/23 0.72 per place 151 first choices 210 places 2023/24 0.75 per place 177 first choices 236 places 2024/25 1.04 per place 239 first choices 230 places 2025/26 0.89 per place 207 first choices 233 places 2026/27 0.92 per place 211 first choices 230 places
First preferences per place at Ladybridge High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 211 first preferences for 230 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ladybridge High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 179 178 138 0.99
2016/17 176 150 141 0.85
2017/18 179 171 137 0.96
2018/19 209 204 161 0.98
2019/20 210 236 162 1.12
2020/21 208 173 162 0.83
2021/22 202 138 138 0.68
2022/23 210 151 151 0.72
2023/24 236 177 177 0.75
2024/25 230 239 192 1.04
2025/26 233 207 191 0.89
2026/27 230 211 195 0.92

Places offered

230

in 2026/27

Named first choice

211

518 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.4%

195 of 211

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 230 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

1,245

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,114

89.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

131

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 Ladybridge High 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 Ladybridge High School reported 131 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.5% 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 Ladybridge High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 901 places 857 on roll 2010/11 908 places 846 on roll 2011/12 900 places 802 on roll 2012/13 900 places 843 on roll 2013/14 900 places 858 on roll 2014/15 900 places 863 on roll 2015/16 900 places 875 on roll 2016/17 900 places 901 on roll 2017/18 900 places 912 on roll 2018/19 900 places 933 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,010 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,035 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,061 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,095 on roll 2024/25 1,245 places 1,114 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bolton

Postcode BL3 4NG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 134646).

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.