School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Dixons City Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 232 families who named Dixons City Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 369 put it first.

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

2.16

first choices for every place available

369 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Dixons City Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Dixons City 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 Bradford 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 Bradford, 13.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 254 of 1,912 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 Bradford.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bradford 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

Dixons City Academy 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 Dixons City Academy, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.8 per place 457 first choices 163 places 2016/17 2.77 per place 449 first choices 162 places 2017/18 2.55 per place 416 first choices 163 places 2018/19 2.5 per place 408 first choices 163 places 2019/20 2.32 per place 373 first choices 161 places 2020/21 2.51 per place 442 first choices 176 places 2021/22 2.17 per place 377 first choices 174 places 2022/23 2.11 per place 376 first choices 178 places 2023/24 2.13 per place 383 first choices 180 places 2024/25 2.3 per place 402 first choices 175 places 2025/26 2.07 per place 361 first choices 174 places 2026/27 2.16 per place 369 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at Dixons City Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 369 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Dixons City Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 163 457 129 2.8
2016/17 162 449 122 2.77
2017/18 163 416 128 2.55
2018/19 163 408 121 2.5
2019/20 161 373 120 2.32
2020/21 176 442 146 2.51
2021/22 174 377 126 2.17
2022/23 178 376 135 2.11
2023/24 180 383 141 2.13
2024/25 175 402 146 2.3
2025/26 174 361 136 2.07
2026/27 171 369 137 2.16

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

369

1,317 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

37.1%

137 of 369

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 171 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

1,166

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

902

77.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

264

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 Dixons City 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 Dixons City Academy reported 264 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 77.4% 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 Dixons City Academy 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 1,085 places 1,103 on roll 2010/11 1,290 places 1,100 on roll 2011/12 1,100 places 1,100 on roll 2012/13 1,100 places 1,100 on roll 2013/14 1,105 places 1,086 on roll 2014/15 1,105 places 1,100 on roll 2015/16 1,105 places 1,090 on roll 2016/17 1,085 places 1,092 on roll 2017/18 1,085 places 1,095 on roll 2018/19 1,085 places 1,126 on roll 2020/21 900 places 873 on roll 2021/22 900 places 889 on roll 2022/23 900 places 903 on roll 2023/24 900 places 917 on roll 2024/25 1,166 places 902 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
Bradford

Postcode BD5 7RR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 130909).

Other contested secondary schools in Bradford

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.