School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Shavington Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 40 families who named Shavington Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 195 and 225 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.

1.15

first choices for every place available

225 first preferences for 195 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Shavington Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Shavington 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

Shavington Academy turned first-choice families away in 6 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 Shavington 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 0.9 per place 103 first choices 114 places 2016/17 1 per place 168 first choices 168 places 2017/18 0.92 per place 137 first choices 149 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 162 first choices 169 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 190 first choices 170 places 2020/21 1.08 per place 184 first choices 171 places 2021/22 1.33 per place 237 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.19 per place 209 first choices 175 places 2023/24 1.03 per place 196 first choices 190 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 188 first choices 196 places 2025/26 1 per place 210 first choices 210 places 2026/27 1.15 per place 225 first choices 195 places
First preferences per place at Shavington Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 225 first preferences for 195 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Shavington Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 114 103 103 0.9
2016/17 168 168 160 1
2017/18 149 137 137 0.92
2018/19 169 162 155 0.96
2019/20 170 190 155 1.12
2020/21 171 184 149 1.08
2021/22 178 237 167 1.33
2022/23 175 209 167 1.19
2023/24 190 196 172 1.03
2024/25 196 188 188 0.96
2025/26 210 210 206 1
2026/27 195 225 185 1.15

Places offered

195

in 2026/27

Named first choice

225

515 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

82.2%

185 of 225

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 195 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 111420.

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

901

85.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

149

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 Shavington 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 Shavington Academy reported 149 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 85.8% 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 Shavington Academy 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 2009/10 970 places 742 on roll 2010/11 931 places 685 on roll 2011/12 931 places 622 on roll 2012/13 850 places 574 on roll 2013/14 850 places 567 on roll 2014/15 850 places 554 on roll 2015/16 850 places 549 on roll 2016/17 850 places 611 on roll 2017/18 850 places 645 on roll 2018/19 850 places 699 on roll 2020/21 850 places 828 on roll 2021/22 850 places 844 on roll 2022/23 850 places 862 on roll 2023/24 850 places 878 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 901 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 CW2 5DH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142237).

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.