School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The North Halifax Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 89 families who named The North Halifax Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 180 and 240 put it first.

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

1.33

first choices for every place available

240 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The North Halifax Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for The North Halifax Grammar 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 Calderdale 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 Calderdale, 14.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 46 of 319 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 Calderdale.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Calderdale 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

The North Halifax Grammar School 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 The North Halifax Grammar School, 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 1.28 per place 199 first choices 155 places 2016/17 1.22 per place 188 first choices 154 places 2017/18 1.49 per place 262 first choices 176 places 2018/19 1.48 per place 265 first choices 179 places 2019/20 1.6 per place 285 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.6 per place 277 first choices 173 places 2021/22 2.11 per place 379 first choices 180 places 2022/23 1.41 per place 249 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.61 per place 289 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.47 per place 263 first choices 179 places 2025/26 1.16 per place 207 first choices 179 places 2026/27 1.33 per place 240 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at The North Halifax Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 240 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The North Halifax Grammar School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 155 199 123 1.28
2016/17 154 188 109 1.22
2017/18 176 262 159 1.49
2018/19 179 265 170 1.48
2019/20 178 285 173 1.6
2020/21 173 277 170 1.6
2021/22 180 379 161 2.11
2022/23 177 249 138 1.41
2023/24 179 289 177 1.61
2024/25 179 263 174 1.47
2025/26 179 207 151 1.16
2026/27 180 240 151 1.33

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

240

670 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.9%

151 of 240

Offers to families outside the council

51%

92 of 180 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

899

99.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

1

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

370

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 The North Halifax Grammar 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 The North Halifax Grammar School reported 1 unfilled place across Years 7 to 11, at 99.9% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The North Halifax Grammar School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,145 places 1,135 on roll 2012/13 1,145 places 1,128 on roll 2013/14 1,145 places 1,126 on roll 2014/15 1,145 places 1,129 on roll 2015/16 1,145 places 1,115 on roll 2016/17 1,270 places 1,106 on roll 2017/18 1,270 places 1,137 on roll 2018/19 1,270 places 1,192 on roll 2020/21 1,270 places 1,239 on roll 2021/22 1,270 places 1,253 on roll 2022/23 1,270 places 1,241 on roll 2023/24 1,270 places 1,237 on roll 2024/25 1,270 places 1,198 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Calderdale

Postcode HX2 9SU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136788).

Other contested secondary schools in Calderdale

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.