School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Winton Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 57 families who named Winton Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 184 and 217 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.

1.18

first choices for every place available

217 first preferences for 184 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Winton Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Winton 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

Winton Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Winton 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 0.86 per place 114 first choices 132 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 162 first choices 173 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 177 first choices 180 places 2018/19 1.32 per place 236 first choices 179 places 2019/20 1.54 per place 271 first choices 176 places 2020/21 1.57 per place 274 first choices 174 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 214 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.41 per place 251 first choices 178 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 216 first choices 176 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 187 first choices 177 places 2025/26 1.05 per place 182 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.18 per place 217 first choices 184 places
First preferences per place at Winton Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 217 first preferences for 184 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Winton Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 132 114 112 0.86
2016/17 173 162 160 0.94
2017/18 180 177 165 0.98
2018/19 179 236 158 1.32
2019/20 176 271 164 1.54
2020/21 174 274 157 1.57
2021/22 178 214 146 1.2
2022/23 178 251 165 1.41
2023/24 176 216 162 1.23
2024/25 177 187 147 1.06
2025/26 174 182 160 1.05
2026/27 184 217 160 1.18

Places offered

184

in 2026/27

Named first choice

217

580 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73.7%

160 of 217

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 184 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

904

100.4% of capacity

Over its capacity by

4

reported as full or beyond

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 Winton 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 Winton Academy 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Winton Academy from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 900 places 638 on roll 2014/15 900 places 639 on roll 2015/16 900 places 629 on roll 2016/17 900 places 710 on roll 2017/18 900 places 776 on roll 2018/19 900 places 842 on roll 2020/21 900 places 932 on roll 2021/22 900 places 924 on roll 2022/23 900 places 931 on roll 2023/24 900 places 912 on roll 2024/25 900 places 904 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

Postcode BH10 4HT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140007).

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.