School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Avonbourne Boys' Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 16 families who named Avonbourne Boys' Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 146 put it first and 130 of them were offered one.

Below: what an appeal in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 7 years of official figures.

16

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

146 first preferences for 169 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Avonbourne Boys' Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Avonbourne Boys' 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 Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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 Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, 24.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 163 of 669 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 Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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

Avonbourne Boys' Academy turned first-choice families away in 1 of the last 7 years. It has never had more first choices than places, and refused families who named it first anyway — 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 Avonbourne Boys' Academy, 2020/21 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 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2020/21 0.25 per place 44 first choices 178 places 2021/22 0.31 per place 58 first choices 188 places 2022/23 0.43 per place 72 first choices 166 places 2023/24 0.53 per place 84 first choices 159 places 2024/25 0.62 per place 111 first choices 179 places 2025/26 0.72 per place 108 first choices 149 places 2026/27 0.86 per place 146 first choices 169 places
First preferences per place at Avonbourne Boys' Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 146 first preferences for 169 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Avonbourne Boys' Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2020/21 178 44 44 0.25
2021/22 188 58 58 0.31
2022/23 166 72 72 0.43
2023/24 159 84 84 0.53
2024/25 179 111 111 0.62
2025/26 149 108 108 0.72
2026/27 169 146 130 0.86

Places offered

169

in 2026/27

Named first choice

146

526 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89%

130 of 146

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 169 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

889

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

839

94.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

50

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 Avonbourne Boys' 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 Avonbourne Boys' Academy reported 50 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.4% 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, 2020/21 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Avonbourne Boys' Academy from 2020/21 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2020/21 1,050 places 569 on roll 2021/22 889 places 650 on roll 2022/23 889 places 753 on roll 2023/24 889 places 795 on roll 2024/25 889 places 839 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
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

Postcode BH7 6NZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147467).

Other contested secondary schools in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

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.