School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at King James I Academy Bishop Auckland?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 3 families who named King James I Academy Bishop Auckland as their first choice did not get a place: 152 put it first and 149 of them were offered one.

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

3

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

152 first preferences for 156 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at King James I Academy Bishop Auckland

There is no published appeal success rate for King James I Academy Bishop Auckland, 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

King James I Academy Bishop Auckland turned first-choice families away in 6 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 King James I Academy Bishop Auckland, 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 0.98 per place 122 first choices 125 places 2016/17 0.98 per place 125 first choices 127 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 146 first choices 147 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 155 first choices 161 places 2019/20 1.09 per place 201 first choices 185 places 2020/21 1.18 per place 198 first choices 168 places 2021/22 1.01 per place 166 first choices 165 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 192 first choices 170 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 183 first choices 171 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 155 first choices 157 places 2025/26 1.15 per place 203 first choices 176 places 2026/27 0.97 per place 152 first choices 156 places
First preferences per place at King James I Academy Bishop Auckland. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 152 first preferences for 156 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at King James I Academy Bishop Auckland, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 125 122 122 0.98
2016/17 127 125 125 0.98
2017/18 147 146 146 0.99
2018/19 161 155 155 0.96
2019/20 185 201 185 1.09
2020/21 168 198 168 1.18
2021/22 165 166 157 1.01
2022/23 170 192 168 1.13
2023/24 171 183 168 1.07
2024/25 157 155 155 0.99
2025/26 176 203 174 1.15
2026/27 156 152 149 0.97

Places offered

156

in 2026/27

Named first choice

152

423 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

98%

149 of 152

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 156 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

805

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

781

97% of capacity

Unfilled places

24

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

237

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 King James I Academy Bishop Auckland 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 King James I Academy Bishop Auckland reported 24 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at King James I Academy Bishop Auckland from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 956 places 729 on roll 2012/13 956 places 722 on roll 2013/14 998 places 727 on roll 2014/15 998 places 758 on roll 2015/16 998 places 725 on roll 2016/17 1,042 places 727 on roll 2017/18 1,042 places 774 on roll 2018/19 1,042 places 847 on roll 2020/21 1,042 places 944 on roll 2021/22 1,042 places 944 on roll 2022/23 1,042 places 946 on roll 2023/24 1,042 places 949 on roll 2024/25 1,042 places 916 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
County Durham

Postcode DL14 7JZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136770).

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.