School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Knutsford Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 36 families who named Knutsford Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 226 and 244 put it first.

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

1.08

first choices for every place available

244 first preferences for 226 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Knutsford Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Knutsford 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 Cheshire East 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 Cheshire East, 31.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 57 of 181 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 Cheshire East.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Cheshire East 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

Knutsford Academy turned first-choice families away in 5 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 Knutsford Academy, 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 0.62 per place 136 first choices 220 places 2016/17 0.72 per place 163 first choices 227 places 2017/18 0.72 per place 157 first choices 217 places 2018/19 0.75 per place 192 first choices 255 places 2019/20 0.7 per place 188 first choices 268 places 2020/21 0.85 per place 237 first choices 279 places 2021/22 1.01 per place 222 first choices 220 places 2022/23 1.19 per place 265 first choices 222 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 212 first choices 220 places 2024/25 1.17 per place 258 first choices 220 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 239 first choices 229 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 244 first choices 226 places
First preferences per place at Knutsford Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 244 first preferences for 226 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Knutsford Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 220 136 136 0.62
2016/17 227 163 163 0.72
2017/18 217 157 157 0.72
2018/19 255 192 192 0.75
2019/20 268 188 188 0.7
2020/21 279 237 232 0.85
2021/22 220 222 192 1.01
2022/23 222 265 210 1.19
2023/24 220 212 197 0.96
2024/25 220 258 215 1.17
2025/26 229 239 209 1.04
2026/27 226 244 208 1.08

Places offered

226

in 2026/27

Named first choice

244

454 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.2%

208 of 244

Offers to families outside the council

17%

39 of 226 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

1,150

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,110

96.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

40

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

174

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 Knutsford 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 Knutsford Academy reported 40 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.5% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Knutsford Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,606 places 1,247 on roll 2012/13 1,606 places 1,285 on roll 2013/14 1,606 places 1,244 on roll 2014/15 1,606 places 1,082 on roll 2015/16 1,606 places 952 on roll 2016/17 1,606 places 962 on roll 2017/18 1,606 places 965 on roll 2018/19 1,606 places 1,007 on roll 2020/21 1,606 places 1,166 on roll 2021/22 1,606 places 1,196 on roll 2022/23 1,606 places 1,257 on roll 2023/24 1,606 places 1,235 on roll 2024/25 1,324 places 1,325 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
Cheshire East

Postcode WA16 0EA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138002).

Other contested secondary schools in Cheshire East

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.