School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sharples School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 109 families who named Sharples School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 235 and 344 put it first.

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

1.46

first choices for every place available

344 first preferences for 235 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sharples School

There is no published appeal success rate for Sharples 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

Sharples School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 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 Sharples 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 0.8 per place 134 first choices 167 places 2016/17 0.63 per place 108 first choices 171 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 198 first choices 202 places 2018/19 0.89 per place 209 first choices 236 places 2019/20 1.08 per place 251 first choices 232 places 2020/21 1.18 per place 280 first choices 237 places 2021/22 1.14 per place 272 first choices 238 places 2022/23 1.27 per place 304 first choices 240 places 2023/24 1.28 per place 305 first choices 238 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 328 first choices 241 places 2025/26 1.52 per place 355 first choices 234 places 2026/27 1.46 per place 344 first choices 235 places
First preferences per place at Sharples School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 344 first preferences for 235 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sharples School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 167 134 134 0.8
2016/17 171 108 108 0.63
2017/18 202 198 177 0.98
2018/19 236 209 197 0.89
2019/20 232 251 182 1.08
2020/21 237 280 198 1.18
2021/22 238 272 205 1.14
2022/23 240 304 217 1.27
2023/24 238 305 213 1.28
2024/25 241 328 228 1.36
2025/26 234 355 224 1.52
2026/27 235 344 235 1.46

Places offered

235

in 2026/27

Named first choice

344

826 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.3%

235 of 344

Offers to families outside the council

1%

3 of 235 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 105259.

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

1,300

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,214

93.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

86

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 Sharples 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 Sharples School reported 86 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 93.4% 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 Sharples 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 1,050 places 929 on roll 2010/11 1,050 places 916 on roll 2011/12 1,050 places 893 on roll 2012/13 1,050 places 843 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 800 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 768 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 718 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 754 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 863 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 947 on roll 2020/21 1,200 places 1,079 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 1,165 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 1,190 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,216 on roll 2024/25 1,300 places 1,214 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 BL1 8SN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142232).

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.