School admission appeals in Cumberland
Cumberland heard 66 school admission appeals in 2025, and 38 of them were upheld. The figures below come from the Department for Education and cover every state-funded school in the authority — they describe Cumberland as a whole, not any single school.
Over the last three years the Cumberland success rate has run 35.8 percentage points higher than the England average of 19.8%.
of appeals heard in Cumberland were upheld
55 of 99 appeals heard in 2024–2025
2025 at a glance
Appeals lodged
97
by parents in Cumberland
Appeals heard by a panel
66
68% of those lodged
Appeals upheld
38
57.6% of those heard
England, same year
19.4%
7,498 of 38,639 heard
If your child is going into Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, read this first
Some primary appeals in Cumberland are infant class size appeals. These are a different kind of appeal with a much narrower test. A panel can only uphold one if the admission arrangements were unlawful, they were applied incorrectly, or the decision to refuse was one no reasonable authority would have made. How much your child wants the place, or how strong the school is, cannot come into it.
Too few were heard in Cumberland to publish a local rate; across England the figure is 9.8%. That is far lower than other appeals, and it is the single most important thing to establish before you spend time on a case.
Which appeals succeed in Cumberland
Secondary and primary appeals are judged on different tests, and the gap between them is usually wide. Pooling three years gives a steadier picture than any single year.
Vertical marker shows the England figure for the same phase.
View as a table
| Phase | Heard | Upheld | Rate | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary | 96 | 54 | 56.2% | 20.5% |
| Primary | 3 | 1 | too few | 17.4% |
| Infant class size | 3 | 1 | too few | 9.8% |
Infant class size appeals are counted within the primary figures, not added to them.
Appeals in Cumberland since 2024
Cumberland has only existed since 2024, so there is less history here than for most councils.
View as a table
| Year | Heard | Upheld | Cumberland | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 33 | 17 | 51.5% | 20% |
| 2025 | 66 | 38 | 57.6% | 19.4% |
How Cumberland compares
Success rate ranking
2 of 151
English councils, ranked on the pooled 3-year success rate, LAs with 10+ appeals heard. Position 1 is the highest rate.
Appeal volume ranking
149 of 151
by number of appeals heard over the same period — 99 in total.
Success rates vary enormously between councils, from under 5% to over 50%. Some of that is real difference in how panels and admission authorities operate; some of it reflects which schools are oversubscribed and how many hopeless cases get lodged. A high local rate is not a prediction about your appeal.
Before Cumberland existed
Cumbria was replaced in 2024. Its figures cover a different area and are shown as context only. Figures for Cumbria are shown separately because they cover a different area — they are background, not this council's record.
| Year | Heard | Upheld | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 146 | 40 | 27.4% |
| 2017 | 151 | 44 | 29.1% |
| 2018 | 161 | 37 | 23% |
| 2019 | 189 | 53 | 28% |
| 2020 | 144 | 44 | 30.6% |
| 2021 | 116 | 37 | 31.9% |
| 2022 | 122 | 33 | 27% |
| 2023 | 121 | 36 | 29.8% |
Schools in Cumberland
Cumberland has 164 state-funded mainstream schools — 145 primary and 19 secondary. The largest concentrations are in Carlisle, Wigton, Workington and Whitehaven.
What we can't tell you
Nobody publishes appeal outcomes school by school — the Department for Education collects returns from individual schools but only releases them added up to council level. Any site claiming to know your school's appeal odds is guessing. What matters far more than a local average is whether your particular grounds are ones a panel is allowed to act on.