School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Poltair School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 35 families who named Poltair School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 183 and 218 put it first.

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

1.19

first choices for every place available

218 first preferences for 183 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Poltair School

There is no published appeal success rate for Poltair School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Cornwall 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 Cornwall, 40.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 105 of 258 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 Cornwall.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Cornwall 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

Poltair School turned first-choice families away in 1 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 Poltair School, 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 0.84 per place 84 first choices 100 places 2016/17 0.9 per place 96 first choices 107 places 2017/18 1 per place 110 first choices 110 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 125 first choices 130 places 2019/20 0.91 per place 118 first choices 129 places 2020/21 0.63 per place 105 first choices 166 places 2021/22 0.71 per place 88 first choices 124 places 2022/23 0.83 per place 148 first choices 178 places 2023/24 0.86 per place 170 first choices 198 places 2024/25 0.95 per place 182 first choices 192 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 174 first choices 175 places 2026/27 1.19 per place 218 first choices 183 places
First preferences per place at Poltair School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 218 first preferences for 183 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Poltair School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 100 84 84 0.84
2016/17 107 96 96 0.9
2017/18 110 110 110 1
2018/19 130 125 125 0.96
2019/20 129 118 118 0.91
2020/21 166 105 105 0.63
2021/22 124 88 88 0.71
2022/23 178 148 148 0.83
2023/24 198 170 170 0.86
2024/25 192 182 182 0.95
2025/26 175 174 174 0.99
2026/27 183 218 183 1.19

Places offered

183

in 2026/27

Named first choice

218

482 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.9%

183 of 218

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 183 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 112052.

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

1,077

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

869

80.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

208

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 Poltair School 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 Poltair School reported 208 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 80.7% 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 Poltair School 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 2009/10 900 places 822 on roll 2010/11 900 places 800 on roll 2011/12 912 places 771 on roll 2012/13 900 places 780 on roll 2013/14 900 places 738 on roll 2014/15 900 places 679 on roll 2015/16 900 places 631 on roll 2016/17 900 places 645 on roll 2017/18 900 places 653 on roll 2018/19 900 places 690 on roll 2020/21 900 places 775 on roll 2021/22 900 places 758 on roll 2022/23 900 places 804 on roll 2023/24 900 places 838 on roll 2024/25 1,077 places 869 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Cornwall

Postcode PL25 4BZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147442).

Other contested secondary schools in Cornwall

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.