School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Linton Village College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 31 families who named Linton Village College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 145 and 170 put it first.

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

1.17

first choices for every place available

170 first preferences for 145 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Linton Village College

There is no published appeal success rate for Linton Village College, 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

Linton Village College turned first-choice families away in 10 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 Linton Village College, 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 0.97 per place 151 first choices 156 places 2016/17 1.02 per place 155 first choices 152 places 2017/18 1.12 per place 186 first choices 166 places 2018/19 1.13 per place 182 first choices 161 places 2019/20 1.24 per place 197 first choices 159 places 2020/21 1.1 per place 180 first choices 163 places 2021/22 0.9 per place 130 first choices 145 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 165 first choices 163 places 2023/24 1.12 per place 180 first choices 161 places 2024/25 1.02 per place 149 first choices 146 places 2025/26 1.05 per place 138 first choices 131 places 2026/27 1.17 per place 170 first choices 145 places
First preferences per place at Linton Village College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 170 first preferences for 145 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Linton Village College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 156 151 147 0.97
2016/17 152 155 136 1.02
2017/18 166 186 156 1.12
2018/19 161 182 160 1.13
2019/20 159 197 158 1.24
2020/21 163 180 161 1.1
2021/22 145 130 130 0.9
2022/23 163 165 158 1.01
2023/24 161 180 156 1.12
2024/25 146 149 136 1.02
2025/26 131 138 125 1.05
2026/27 145 170 139 1.17

Places offered

145

in 2026/27

Named first choice

170

295 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.8%

139 of 170

Offers to families outside the council

28%

41 of 145 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

1,046

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

796

76.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

250

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 Linton Village College 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 Linton Village College reported 250 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 76.1% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Linton Village College from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 918 places 835 on roll 2011/12 918 places 829 on roll 2012/13 918 places 832 on roll 2013/14 918 places 818 on roll 2014/15 918 places 828 on roll 2015/16 918 places 821 on roll 2016/17 918 places 842 on roll 2017/18 918 places 854 on roll 2018/19 918 places 876 on roll 2020/21 918 places 862 on roll 2021/22 918 places 832 on roll 2022/23 918 places 825 on roll 2023/24 918 places 830 on roll 2024/25 1,046 places 796 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 CB21 4JB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136442).

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.