School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Little Lever School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 2 families who named Little Lever School as their first choice did not get a place: 216 put it first and 214 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.

2

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

216 first preferences for 231 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Little Lever School

There is no published appeal success rate for Little Lever 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

Little Lever School turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 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 Little Lever 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 0.9 per place 174 first choices 193 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 193 first choices 205 places 2017/18 0.91 per place 187 first choices 206 places 2018/19 1.12 per place 229 first choices 204 places 2019/20 1 per place 208 first choices 208 places 2020/21 1.16 per place 241 first choices 207 places 2021/22 1.08 per place 231 first choices 214 places 2022/23 0.89 per place 190 first choices 214 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 248 first choices 217 places 2024/25 1.07 per place 253 first choices 236 places 2025/26 0.87 per place 208 first choices 238 places 2026/27 0.94 per place 216 first choices 231 places
First preferences per place at Little Lever School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 216 first preferences for 231 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Little Lever School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 193 174 168 0.9
2016/17 205 193 180 0.94
2017/18 206 187 180 0.91
2018/19 204 229 184 1.12
2019/20 208 208 176 1
2020/21 207 241 186 1.16
2021/22 214 231 198 1.08
2022/23 214 190 190 0.89
2023/24 217 248 198 1.14
2024/25 236 253 209 1.07
2025/26 238 208 204 0.87
2026/27 231 216 214 0.94

Places offered

231

in 2026/27

Named first choice

216

356 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

99.1%

214 of 216

Offers to families outside the council

19%

43 of 231 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 105256.

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

1,080

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,066

98.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

14

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 Little Lever 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 Little Lever School reported 14 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 Little Lever School 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 1,050 places 1,014 on roll 2010/11 1,050 places 1,009 on roll 2011/12 1,050 places 977 on roll 2012/13 1,050 places 938 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 906 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 882 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 892 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 920 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 948 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 978 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,044 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,040 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,056 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,043 on roll 2024/25 1,080 places 1,066 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bolton

Postcode BL3 1BT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142296).

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.