School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Fallibroome Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 44 families who named The Fallibroome Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 235 and 273 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.

1.16

first choices for every place available

273 first preferences for 235 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Fallibroome Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Fallibroome 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

The Fallibroome Academy 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 Fallibroome 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 1.02 per place 243 first choices 238 places 2016/17 1.12 per place 267 first choices 239 places 2017/18 1.22 per place 291 first choices 238 places 2018/19 1.07 per place 254 first choices 238 places 2019/20 1.33 per place 317 first choices 239 places 2020/21 1.11 per place 266 first choices 240 places 2021/22 1.26 per place 302 first choices 240 places 2022/23 1.14 per place 273 first choices 240 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 294 first choices 240 places 2024/25 1.21 per place 290 first choices 240 places 2025/26 1.12 per place 268 first choices 240 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 273 first choices 235 places
First preferences per place at The Fallibroome Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 273 first preferences for 235 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Fallibroome Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 238 243 234 1.02
2016/17 239 267 239 1.12
2017/18 238 291 237 1.22
2018/19 238 254 234 1.07
2019/20 239 317 234 1.33
2020/21 240 266 229 1.11
2021/22 240 302 238 1.26
2022/23 240 273 230 1.14
2023/24 240 294 238 1.23
2024/25 240 290 235 1.21
2025/26 240 268 236 1.12
2026/27 235 273 229 1.16

Places offered

235

in 2026/27

Named first choice

273

556 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.9%

229 of 273

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 235 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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,198

99.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

381

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 Fallibroome 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 The Fallibroome Academy reported 2 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.8% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Fallibroome Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,535 places 1,534 on roll 2011/12 1,535 places 1,541 on roll 2012/13 1,456 places 1,521 on roll 2013/14 1,535 places 1,504 on roll 2014/15 1,535 places 1,530 on roll 2015/16 1,535 places 1,528 on roll 2016/17 1,535 places 1,475 on roll 2017/18 1,535 places 1,485 on roll 2018/19 1,541 places 1,522 on roll 2020/21 1,541 places 1,552 on roll 2021/22 1,541 places 1,565 on roll 2022/23 1,541 places 1,563 on roll 2023/24 1,541 places 1,542 on roll 2024/25 1,581 places 1,554 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 SK10 4AF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136278).

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.