School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sir James Smith's School?

In 2026/27, Sir James Smith's School offered 94 places and 91 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.97

first choices for every place available

91 first preferences for 94 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sir James Smith's School

There is no published appeal success rate for Sir James Smith's 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

Sir James Smith's 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 Sir James Smith's 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 1 per place 68 first choices 68 places 2016/17 1 per place 91 first choices 91 places 2017/18 1 per place 103 first choices 103 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 99 first choices 103 places 2019/20 0.98 per place 116 first choices 118 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 104 first choices 105 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 112 first choices 113 places 2022/23 1 per place 143 first choices 143 places 2023/24 1 per place 120 first choices 120 places 2024/25 1.02 per place 129 first choices 127 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 113 first choices 114 places 2026/27 0.97 per place 91 first choices 94 places
First preferences per place at Sir James Smith's School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 91 first preferences for 94 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sir James Smith's 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 68 68 68 1
2016/17 91 91 91 1
2017/18 103 103 103 1
2018/19 103 99 99 0.96
2019/20 118 116 116 0.98
2020/21 105 104 104 0.99
2021/22 113 112 112 0.99
2022/23 143 143 143 1
2023/24 120 120 117 1
2024/25 127 129 127 1.02
2025/26 114 113 113 0.99
2026/27 94 91 91 0.97

Places offered

94

in 2026/27

Named first choice

91

132 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

91 of 91

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 91 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 112039.

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

696

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

592

85.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

104

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 Sir James Smith's 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 Sir James Smith's School reported 104 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 85.1% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Sir James Smith's School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 691 places 552 on roll 2010/11 707 places 542 on roll 2011/12 751 places 498 on roll 2012/13 737 places 490 on roll 2013/14 737 places 459 on roll 2014/15 736 places 435 on roll 2015/16 736 places 420 on roll 2016/17 736 places 436 on roll 2017/18 736 places 462 on roll 2018/19 696 places 495 on roll 2020/21 696 places 548 on roll 2021/22 696 places 580 on roll 2022/23 696 places 597 on roll 2023/24 696 places 593 on roll 2024/25 696 places 592 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
Cornwall

Postcode PL32 9UJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146408).

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.