School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wolsingham School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 41 families who named Wolsingham School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 143 and 181 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.

1.27

first choices for every place available

181 first preferences for 143 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wolsingham School

There is no published appeal success rate for Wolsingham 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

Wolsingham School 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 Wolsingham 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 0.98 per place 84 first choices 86 places 2016/17 0.95 per place 92 first choices 97 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 110 first choices 111 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 111 first choices 115 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 144 first choices 152 places 2020/21 0.97 per place 127 first choices 131 places 2021/22 1.01 per place 175 first choices 174 places 2022/23 0.96 per place 153 first choices 160 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 160 first choices 144 places 2024/25 1.4 per place 208 first choices 149 places 2025/26 1.37 per place 214 first choices 156 places 2026/27 1.27 per place 181 first choices 143 places
First preferences per place at Wolsingham School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 181 first preferences for 143 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wolsingham 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 86 84 84 0.98
2016/17 97 92 92 0.95
2017/18 111 110 110 0.99
2018/19 115 111 111 0.97
2019/20 152 144 144 0.95
2020/21 131 127 127 0.97
2021/22 174 175 168 1.01
2022/23 160 153 151 0.96
2023/24 144 160 141 1.11
2024/25 149 208 148 1.4
2025/26 156 214 153 1.37
2026/27 143 181 140 1.27

Places offered

143

in 2026/27

Named first choice

181

368 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

77.3%

140 of 181

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 143 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 114297.

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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

748

99.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

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 Wolsingham 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 Wolsingham School reported 2 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.7% 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 Wolsingham 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 2009/10 976 places 760 on roll 2010/11 920 places 739 on roll 2011/12 920 places 703 on roll 2012/13 920 places 702 on roll 2013/14 1,041 places 675 on roll 2014/15 1,041 places 615 on roll 2015/16 1,041 places 585 on roll 2016/17 892 places 565 on roll 2017/18 812 places 567 on roll 2018/19 750 places 568 on roll 2020/21 750 places 654 on roll 2021/22 750 places 719 on roll 2022/23 750 places 757 on roll 2023/24 750 places 748 on roll 2024/25 750 places 748 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 DL13 3DJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 148109).

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.