School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sedgefield Community College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 5 families who named Sedgefield Community College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 198 and 201 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.

1.02

first choices for every place available

201 first preferences for 198 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sedgefield Community College

There is no published appeal success rate for Sedgefield Community College, 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

Sedgefield Community College 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 Sedgefield Community College, 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 1.15 per place 220 first choices 191 places 2016/17 1.17 per place 227 first choices 194 places 2017/18 1.12 per place 219 first choices 195 places 2018/19 1.18 per place 228 first choices 194 places 2019/20 1.32 per place 259 first choices 196 places 2020/21 1.16 per place 220 first choices 190 places 2021/22 1.29 per place 252 first choices 196 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 222 first choices 191 places 2023/24 1.37 per place 266 first choices 194 places 2024/25 1.3 per place 250 first choices 192 places 2025/26 1.24 per place 235 first choices 189 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 201 first choices 198 places
First preferences per place at Sedgefield Community College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 201 first preferences for 198 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sedgefield Community College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 191 220 190 1.15
2016/17 194 227 194 1.17
2017/18 195 219 193 1.12
2018/19 194 228 190 1.18
2019/20 196 259 195 1.32
2020/21 190 220 189 1.16
2021/22 196 252 195 1.29
2022/23 191 222 191 1.16
2023/24 194 266 192 1.37
2024/25 192 250 191 1.3
2025/26 189 235 186 1.24
2026/27 198 201 196 1.02

Places offered

198

in 2026/27

Named first choice

201

322 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

97.5%

196 of 201

Offers to families outside the council

18%

36 of 198 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 114317.

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

975

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

980

100.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

5

reported as full or beyond

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 Sedgefield Community College 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 Sedgefield Community College 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 Sedgefield Community College 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 1,089 places 860 on roll 2010/11 850 places 850 on roll 2011/12 975 places 848 on roll 2012/13 975 places 866 on roll 2013/14 975 places 884 on roll 2014/15 975 places 920 on roll 2015/16 975 places 928 on roll 2016/17 975 places 938 on roll 2017/18 975 places 972 on roll 2018/19 975 places 995 on roll 2020/21 975 places 981 on roll 2021/22 975 places 981 on roll 2022/23 975 places 991 on roll 2023/24 975 places 981 on roll 2024/25 975 places 980 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 TS21 3DD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147670).

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.