School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 4 families who named Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 143 put it first and 139 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.

4

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

143 first preferences for 174 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary 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

Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 5 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 Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary 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 0.83 per place 146 first choices 176 places 2016/17 0.98 per place 176 first choices 179 places 2017/18 1.12 per place 197 first choices 176 places 2018/19 1.22 per place 219 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.14 per place 205 first choices 180 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 177 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.02 per place 183 first choices 180 places 2022/23 0.91 per place 163 first choices 179 places 2023/24 0.93 per place 165 first choices 178 places 2024/25 0.83 per place 146 first choices 176 places 2025/26 0.82 per place 145 first choices 177 places 2026/27 0.82 per place 143 first choices 174 places
First preferences per place at Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 143 first preferences for 174 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 176 146 135 0.83
2016/17 179 176 140 0.98
2017/18 176 197 145 1.12
2018/19 180 219 142 1.22
2019/20 180 205 134 1.14
2020/21 180 177 142 0.98
2021/22 180 183 137 1.02
2022/23 179 163 142 0.91
2023/24 178 165 135 0.93
2024/25 176 146 124 0.83
2025/26 177 145 137 0.82
2026/27 174 143 139 0.82

Places offered

174

in 2026/27

Named first choice

143

390 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

97.2%

139 of 143

Offers to families outside the council

3%

6 of 174 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 105263.

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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

897

99.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

3

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 Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary 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 Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy reported 3 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.7% 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 Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 880 on roll 2010/11 900 places 902 on roll 2011/12 900 places 896 on roll 2012/13 900 places 887 on roll 2013/14 900 places 883 on roll 2014/15 900 places 893 on roll 2015/16 900 places 892 on roll 2016/17 900 places 900 on roll 2017/18 900 places 899 on roll 2018/19 900 places 901 on roll 2020/21 900 places 905 on roll 2021/22 900 places 902 on roll 2022/23 900 places 901 on roll 2023/24 900 places 903 on roll 2024/25 900 places 897 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 BL4 0HT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 151356).

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.