School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Belmont Community School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 32 families who named Belmont Community School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 185 and 212 put it first.

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

1.15

first choices for every place available

212 first preferences for 185 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Belmont Community School

There is no published appeal success rate for Belmont Community 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 County Durham 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 County Durham, 35.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 153 of 426 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 County Durham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not County Durham 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

Belmont Community School turned first-choice families away in 4 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 Belmont Community 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 0.86 per place 136 first choices 159 places 2016/17 0.91 per place 137 first choices 151 places 2017/18 0.81 per place 114 first choices 140 places 2018/19 0.89 per place 132 first choices 149 places 2019/20 0.94 per place 123 first choices 131 places 2020/21 0.87 per place 130 first choices 149 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 158 first choices 163 places 2022/23 0.91 per place 156 first choices 171 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 171 first choices 160 places 2024/25 1.07 per place 175 first choices 163 places 2025/26 1.06 per place 198 first choices 186 places 2026/27 1.15 per place 212 first choices 185 places
First preferences per place at Belmont Community School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 212 first preferences for 185 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Belmont Community School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 159 136 136 0.86
2016/17 151 137 137 0.91
2017/18 140 114 114 0.81
2018/19 149 132 132 0.89
2019/20 131 123 123 0.94
2020/21 149 130 130 0.87
2021/22 163 158 156 0.97
2022/23 171 156 149 0.91
2023/24 160 171 148 1.07
2024/25 163 175 155 1.07
2025/26 186 198 181 1.06
2026/27 185 212 180 1.15

Places offered

185

in 2026/27

Named first choice

212

299 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.9%

180 of 212

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 185 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

849

80.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

201

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 Belmont Community 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 Belmont Community School reported 201 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 80.9% 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 Belmont Community 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 2009/10 820 places 734 on roll 2010/11 820 places 691 on roll 2011/12 820 places 694 on roll 2012/13 820 places 732 on roll 2013/14 853 places 738 on roll 2014/15 853 places 762 on roll 2015/16 853 places 762 on roll 2016/17 875 places 739 on roll 2017/18 875 places 734 on roll 2018/19 845 places 760 on roll 2020/21 845 places 759 on roll 2021/22 845 places 785 on roll 2022/23 845 places 816 on roll 2023/24 845 places 816 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 849 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
County Durham

Postcode DH1 2AG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 114308).

Other contested secondary schools in County Durham

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.