School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Academy at Shotton Hall?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 11 families who named The Academy at Shotton Hall as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 271 and 277 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

277 first preferences for 271 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Academy at Shotton Hall

There is no published appeal success rate for The Academy at Shotton Hall, 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

The Academy at Shotton Hall turned first-choice families away in 5 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 The Academy at Shotton Hall, 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 276 first choices 275 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 298 first choices 300 places 2017/18 1.08 per place 269 first choices 248 places 2018/19 1.09 per place 271 first choices 248 places 2019/20 1.02 per place 256 first choices 250 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 253 first choices 255 places 2021/22 0.98 per place 271 first choices 276 places 2022/23 0.97 per place 222 first choices 230 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 232 first choices 242 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 271 first choices 273 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 258 first choices 265 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 277 first choices 271 places
First preferences per place at The Academy at Shotton Hall. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 277 first preferences for 271 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Academy at Shotton Hall, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 275 276 275 1
2016/17 300 298 298 0.99
2017/18 248 269 248 1.08
2018/19 248 271 248 1.09
2019/20 250 256 249 1.02
2020/21 255 253 252 0.99
2021/22 276 271 271 0.98
2022/23 230 222 218 0.97
2023/24 242 232 232 0.96
2024/25 273 271 271 0.99
2025/26 265 258 258 0.97
2026/27 271 277 266 1.02

Places offered

271

in 2026/27

Named first choice

277

524 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

96%

266 of 277

Offers to families outside the council

1%

3 of 271 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

1,261

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,160

92% of capacity

Unfilled places

101

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 The Academy at Shotton Hall 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 The Academy at Shotton Hall reported 101 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 92% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Academy at Shotton Hall from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,150 places 1,134 on roll 2011/12 1,200 places 1,157 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,169 on roll 2013/14 1,152 places 1,187 on roll 2014/15 1,152 places 1,143 on roll 2015/16 1,152 places 1,153 on roll 2016/17 1,261 places 1,202 on roll 2017/18 1,261 places 1,201 on roll 2018/19 1,261 places 1,196 on roll 2020/21 1,261 places 1,197 on roll 2021/22 1,261 places 1,157 on roll 2022/23 1,261 places 1,157 on roll 2023/24 1,261 places 1,148 on roll 2024/25 1,261 places 1,160 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 SR8 1AU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136451).

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.