School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Parrenthorn High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 28 families who named Parrenthorn High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 210 and 230 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

230 first preferences for 210 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Parrenthorn High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Parrenthorn High School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Bury 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 Bury, 27.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 118 of 427 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 Bury.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Bury 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

Parrenthorn High School turned first-choice families away in 8 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 Parrenthorn High School, 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 1.57 per place 249 first choices 159 places 2016/17 1.69 per place 281 first choices 166 places 2017/18 1.65 per place 274 first choices 166 places 2018/19 1.04 per place 209 first choices 201 places 2019/20 1.28 per place 268 first choices 210 places 2020/21 1.17 per place 243 first choices 208 places 2021/22 0.86 per place 167 first choices 195 places 2022/23 0.9 per place 185 first choices 205 places 2023/24 0.97 per place 200 first choices 207 places 2024/25 1.04 per place 214 first choices 205 places 2025/26 0.98 per place 197 first choices 202 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 230 first choices 210 places
First preferences per place at Parrenthorn High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 230 first preferences for 210 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Parrenthorn High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 159 249 158 1.57
2016/17 166 281 163 1.69
2017/18 166 274 161 1.65
2018/19 201 209 184 1.04
2019/20 210 268 199 1.28
2020/21 208 243 198 1.17
2021/22 195 167 167 0.86
2022/23 205 185 184 0.9
2023/24 207 200 192 0.97
2024/25 205 214 191 1.04
2025/26 202 197 193 0.98
2026/27 210 230 202 1.1

Places offered

210

in 2026/27

Named first choice

230

451 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

87.8%

202 of 230

Offers to families outside the council

9%

19 of 210 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 105358.

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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,024

97.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

26

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 Parrenthorn High School 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 Parrenthorn High School reported 26 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.5% 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 Parrenthorn High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 840 places 823 on roll 2010/11 840 places 831 on roll 2011/12 840 places 839 on roll 2012/13 840 places 851 on roll 2013/14 877 places 850 on roll 2014/15 877 places 847 on roll 2015/16 937 places 859 on roll 2016/17 864 places 860 on roll 2017/18 864 places 862 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 894 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 961 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 990 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,001 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,021 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,024 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 converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Bury

Postcode M25 2BW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 151969).

Other contested secondary schools in Bury

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.