School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Abbey College, Ramsey?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named Abbey College, Ramsey as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 197 and 211 put it first.

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

1.07

first choices for every place available

211 first preferences for 197 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Abbey College, Ramsey

There is no published appeal success rate for Abbey College, Ramsey, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Cambridgeshire 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 Cambridgeshire, 29.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 274 of 936 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 Cambridgeshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Cambridgeshire 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

Abbey College, Ramsey turned first-choice families away in 2 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 Abbey College, Ramsey, 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 0.94 per place 162 first choices 172 places 2016/17 0.81 per place 137 first choices 169 places 2017/18 0.91 per place 160 first choices 175 places 2018/19 0.83 per place 161 first choices 195 places 2019/20 0.91 per place 155 first choices 171 places 2020/21 0.93 per place 178 first choices 191 places 2021/22 0.95 per place 140 first choices 148 places 2022/23 0.92 per place 189 first choices 205 places 2023/24 0.89 per place 182 first choices 205 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 194 first choices 196 places 2025/26 1.01 per place 230 first choices 228 places 2026/27 1.07 per place 211 first choices 197 places
First preferences per place at Abbey College, Ramsey. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 211 first preferences for 197 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Abbey College, Ramsey, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 172 162 162 0.94
2016/17 169 137 137 0.81
2017/18 175 160 160 0.91
2018/19 195 161 161 0.83
2019/20 171 155 155 0.91
2020/21 191 178 178 0.93
2021/22 148 140 140 0.95
2022/23 205 189 189 0.92
2023/24 205 182 182 0.89
2024/25 196 194 188 0.99
2025/26 228 230 222 1.01
2026/27 197 211 194 1.07

Places offered

197

in 2026/27

Named first choice

211

286 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.9%

194 of 211

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 197 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

1,308

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

981

75% of capacity

Unfilled places

327

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 Abbey College, Ramsey 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 Abbey College, Ramsey reported 327 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 75% 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 Abbey College, Ramsey from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,000 2,000 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,940 places 1,369 on roll 2012/13 1,933 places 1,289 on roll 2013/14 1,933 places 1,215 on roll 2014/15 1,933 places 1,146 on roll 2015/16 1,933 places 1,079 on roll 2016/17 1,933 places 1,020 on roll 2017/18 1,933 places 954 on roll 2018/19 1,933 places 968 on roll 2020/21 1,933 places 1,007 on roll 2021/22 1,933 places 1,006 on roll 2022/23 1,933 places 1,051 on roll 2023/24 1,933 places 1,029 on roll 2024/25 1,508 places 1,056 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
Cambridgeshire

Postcode PE26 1DG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137377).

Other contested secondary schools in Cambridgeshire

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.