School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Livingstone Academy Bournemouth?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 45 families who named Livingstone Academy Bournemouth as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 136 and 164 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 5 years of official figures.

1.21

first choices for every place available

164 first preferences for 136 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Livingstone Academy Bournemouth

There is no published appeal success rate for Livingstone Academy Bournemouth, 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

Livingstone Academy Bournemouth turned first-choice families away in every one of the 5 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 Livingstone Academy Bournemouth, 2022/23 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 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2022/23 1.18 per place 174 first choices 148 places 2023/24 1.28 per place 184 first choices 144 places 2024/25 1.6 per place 229 first choices 143 places 2025/26 1.51 per place 213 first choices 141 places 2026/27 1.21 per place 164 first choices 136 places
First preferences per place at Livingstone Academy Bournemouth. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 164 first preferences for 136 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Livingstone Academy Bournemouth, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2022/23 148 174 109 1.18
2023/24 144 184 116 1.28
2024/25 143 229 123 1.6
2025/26 141 213 127 1.51
2026/27 136 164 119 1.21

Places offered

136

in 2026/27

Named first choice

164

497 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

72.6%

119 of 164

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 136 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

1,170

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

810

69.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

360

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 Livingstone Academy Bournemouth 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 Livingstone Academy Bournemouth reported 360 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 69.2% 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, 2021/22 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Livingstone Academy Bournemouth from 2021/22 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2021/22 1,170 places 173 on roll 2022/23 1,170 places 384 on roll 2023/24 1,170 places 595 on roll 2024/25 1,170 places 810 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

Postcode BH1 1PA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 148590).

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.