School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Dixons Kings Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 231 families who named Dixons Kings Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 151 and 344 put it first.

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

2.28

first choices for every place available

344 first preferences for 151 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Dixons Kings Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Dixons Kings 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 Kings Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — 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 Dixons Kings Academy, 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 0.95 per place 151 first choices 159 places 2016/17 1.11 per place 177 first choices 159 places 2017/18 1.27 per place 202 first choices 159 places 2018/19 1.89 per place 298 first choices 158 places 2019/20 2.3 per place 364 first choices 158 places 2020/21 2.48 per place 387 first choices 156 places 2021/22 1.89 per place 299 first choices 158 places 2022/23 1.85 per place 288 first choices 156 places 2023/24 1.92 per place 306 first choices 159 places 2024/25 2.29 per place 359 first choices 157 places 2025/26 2.37 per place 355 first choices 150 places 2026/27 2.28 per place 344 first choices 151 places
First preferences per place at Dixons Kings Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 344 first preferences for 151 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Dixons Kings Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 159 151 102 0.95
2016/17 159 177 99 1.11
2017/18 159 202 91 1.27
2018/19 158 298 104 1.89
2019/20 158 364 114 2.3
2020/21 156 387 123 2.48
2021/22 158 299 115 1.89
2022/23 156 288 110 1.85
2023/24 159 306 116 1.92
2024/25 157 359 114 2.29
2025/26 150 355 126 2.37
2026/27 151 344 113 2.28

Places offered

151

in 2026/27

Named first choice

344

1,181 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

32.8%

113 of 344

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 151 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

824

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

837

101.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

13

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 Dixons Kings 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 Kings 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Dixons Kings Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 800 places 148 on roll 2012/13 800 places 351 on roll 2013/14 800 places 538 on roll 2014/15 800 places 688 on roll 2015/16 800 places 827 on roll 2016/17 800 places 813 on roll 2017/18 800 places 833 on roll 2018/19 800 places 836 on roll 2020/21 800 places 841 on roll 2021/22 800 places 843 on roll 2022/23 800 places 851 on roll 2023/24 800 places 840 on roll 2024/25 824 places 837 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
Bradford

Postcode BD7 2AN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137277).

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.