School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Durham Johnston Comprehensive School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 71 families who named Durham Johnston Comprehensive School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 257 and 328 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.

1.28

first choices for every place available

328 first preferences for 257 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Durham Johnston Comprehensive School

There is no published appeal success rate for Durham Johnston Comprehensive 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

Durham Johnston Comprehensive School 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 Durham Johnston Comprehensive 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 1.32 per place 314 first choices 237 places 2016/17 1.3 per place 341 first choices 263 places 2017/18 1.23 per place 324 first choices 264 places 2018/19 1.19 per place 313 first choices 264 places 2019/20 1.26 per place 334 first choices 266 places 2020/21 1.26 per place 333 first choices 265 places 2021/22 1.35 per place 355 first choices 262 places 2022/23 1.32 per place 347 first choices 262 places 2023/24 1.42 per place 366 first choices 258 places 2024/25 1.38 per place 364 first choices 263 places 2025/26 1.19 per place 309 first choices 260 places 2026/27 1.28 per place 328 first choices 257 places
First preferences per place at Durham Johnston Comprehensive School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 328 first preferences for 257 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Durham Johnston Comprehensive School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 237 314 229 1.32
2016/17 263 341 259 1.3
2017/18 264 324 261 1.23
2018/19 264 313 256 1.19
2019/20 266 334 264 1.26
2020/21 265 333 261 1.26
2021/22 262 355 260 1.35
2022/23 262 347 249 1.32
2023/24 258 366 257 1.42
2024/25 263 364 263 1.38
2025/26 260 309 259 1.19
2026/27 257 328 257 1.28

Places offered

257

in 2026/27

Named first choice

328

783 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.4%

257 of 328

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 257 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

1,325

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,334

100.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

9

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

343

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 Durham Johnston Comprehensive 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 Durham Johnston Comprehensive School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Durham Johnston Comprehensive School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,406 places 1,486 on roll 2010/11 1,538 places 1,493 on roll 2011/12 1,538 places 1,506 on roll 2012/13 1,487 places 1,513 on roll 2013/14 1,548 places 1,497 on roll 2014/15 1,548 places 1,502 on roll 2015/16 1,548 places 1,560 on roll 2016/17 1,558 places 1,599 on roll 2017/18 1,558 places 1,602 on roll 2018/19 1,558 places 1,637 on roll 2020/21 1,668 places 1,693 on roll 2021/22 1,668 places 1,693 on roll 2022/23 1,668 places 1,671 on roll 2023/24 1,668 places 1,691 on roll 2024/25 1,668 places 1,688 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 4SU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 114312).

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.