School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Trinity Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 56 families who named Trinity Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 170 and 213 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Bristol, City of actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 7 years of official figures.

1.25

first choices for every place available

213 first preferences for 170 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Trinity Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Trinity 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 Bristol, City of 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 Bristol, City of, 28% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 171 of 610 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 Bristol, City of.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bristol, City of 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

Trinity Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 7 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 6 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 Trinity Academy, 2020/21 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 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2020/21 0.91 per place 105 first choices 116 places 2021/22 1.02 per place 181 first choices 177 places 2022/23 1.03 per place 211 first choices 205 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 205 first choices 174 places 2024/25 1.34 per place 232 first choices 173 places 2025/26 1.49 per place 251 first choices 169 places 2026/27 1.25 per place 213 first choices 170 places
First preferences per place at Trinity Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 213 first preferences for 170 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Trinity Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2020/21 116 105 82 0.91
2021/22 177 181 142 1.02
2022/23 205 211 174 1.03
2023/24 174 205 141 1.18
2024/25 173 232 155 1.34
2025/26 169 251 165 1.49
2026/27 170 213 157 1.25

Places offered

170

in 2026/27

Named first choice

213

586 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73.7%

157 of 213

Offers to families outside the council

5%

9 of 170 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

580

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

886

152.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

306

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

320

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 Trinity 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 Trinity 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, 2020/21 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Trinity Academy from 2020/21 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2020/21 900 places 243 on roll 2021/22 900 places 428 on roll 2022/23 900 places 634 on roll 2023/24 900 places 813 on roll 2024/25 900 places 943 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
Bristol, City of

Postcode BS7 9BY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147072).

Other contested secondary schools in Bristol, City of

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.