School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ernesford Grange Community Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 28 families who named Ernesford Grange Community Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 210 and 210 put it first.

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

1

first choices for every place available

210 first preferences for 210 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ernesford Grange Community Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Ernesford Grange Community Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Coventry 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 Coventry, 21.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 224 of 1,056 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 Coventry.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Coventry 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

Ernesford Grange Community Academy turned first-choice families away in 2 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Ernesford Grange Community Academy, 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 0.77 per place 88 first choices 114 places 2016/17 0.7 per place 98 first choices 141 places 2017/18 0.56 per place 78 first choices 140 places 2018/19 0.37 per place 66 first choices 180 places 2019/20 0.57 per place 101 first choices 178 places 2020/21 0.63 per place 113 first choices 179 places 2021/22 0.72 per place 152 first choices 210 places 2022/23 0.8 per place 168 first choices 211 places 2023/24 0.9 per place 188 first choices 210 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 221 first choices 209 places 2025/26 0.89 per place 186 first choices 209 places 2026/27 1 per place 210 first choices 210 places
First preferences per place at Ernesford Grange Community Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 210 first preferences for 210 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ernesford Grange Community Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 114 88 88 0.77
2016/17 141 98 98 0.7
2017/18 140 78 78 0.56
2018/19 180 66 66 0.37
2019/20 178 101 101 0.57
2020/21 179 113 113 0.63
2021/22 210 152 151 0.72
2022/23 211 168 168 0.8
2023/24 210 188 178 0.9
2024/25 209 221 195 1.06
2025/26 209 186 185 0.89
2026/27 210 210 182 1

Places offered

210

in 2026/27

Named first choice

210

371 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.7%

182 of 210

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 210 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,039

99% of capacity

Unfilled places

11

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

118

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 Ernesford Grange Community Academy 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 Ernesford Grange Community Academy reported 11 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99% 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ernesford Grange Community Academy from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 1,025 places 564 on roll 2014/15 1,025 places 565 on roll 2015/16 1,025 places 577 on roll 2016/17 1,025 places 625 on roll 2017/18 960 places 591 on roll 2018/19 960 places 658 on roll 2020/21 960 places 853 on roll 2021/22 960 places 952 on roll 2022/23 1,110 places 1,072 on roll 2023/24 1,110 places 1,129 on roll 2024/25 1,168 places 1,156 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Coventry

Postcode CV3 2QD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140366).

Other contested secondary schools in Coventry

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.