School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bournemouth School for Girls?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 61 families who named Bournemouth School for Girls as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 180 and 239 put it first.

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

1.33

first choices for every place available

239 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bournemouth School for Girls

There is no published appeal success rate for Bournemouth School for Girls, 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

Bournemouth School for Girls turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Bournemouth School for Girls, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.27 per place 210 first choices 165 places 2016/17 1.43 per place 234 first choices 164 places 2017/18 1.4 per place 232 first choices 166 places 2018/19 1.42 per place 233 first choices 164 places 2019/20 1.33 per place 238 first choices 179 places 2020/21 1.23 per place 221 first choices 179 places 2021/22 2.05 per place 353 first choices 172 places 2022/23 1.46 per place 261 first choices 179 places 2023/24 1.37 per place 245 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 245 first choices 180 places 2025/26 1.32 per place 238 first choices 180 places 2026/27 1.33 per place 239 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Bournemouth School for Girls. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 239 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bournemouth School for Girls, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 165 210 164 1.27
2016/17 164 234 163 1.43
2017/18 166 232 165 1.4
2018/19 164 233 164 1.42
2019/20 179 238 175 1.33
2020/21 179 221 174 1.23
2021/22 172 353 169 2.05
2022/23 179 261 179 1.46
2023/24 179 245 177 1.37
2024/25 180 245 179 1.36
2025/26 180 238 176 1.32
2026/27 180 239 178 1.33

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

239

392 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

74.5%

178 of 239

Offers to families outside the council

6%

11 of 180 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

856

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

897

104.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

41

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

323

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 Bournemouth School for Girls 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 Bournemouth School for Girls was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Bournemouth School for Girls from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,154 places 1,086 on roll 2012/13 1,154 places 1,101 on roll 2013/14 1,154 places 1,115 on roll 2014/15 1,154 places 1,140 on roll 2015/16 1,153 places 1,163 on roll 2016/17 1,153 places 1,150 on roll 2017/18 1,153 places 1,133 on roll 2018/19 1,153 places 1,148 on roll 2020/21 1,153 places 1,195 on roll 2021/22 1,179 places 1,196 on roll 2022/23 1,179 places 1,182 on roll 2023/24 1,179 places 1,208 on roll 2024/25 1,179 places 1,256 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

Postcode BH8 9UJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136996).

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.