School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Cockermouth School?

In 2026/27, Cockermouth School offered 175 places and 172 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.98

first choices for every place available

172 first preferences for 175 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Cockermouth School

There is no published appeal success rate for Cockermouth 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 Cumberland 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 Cumberland, 52.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 76 of 145 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 Cumberland.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Cumberland 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

Cockermouth School turned first-choice families away in 4 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 Cockermouth 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 1.04 per place 223 first choices 215 places 2016/17 0.9 per place 190 first choices 211 places 2017/18 0.95 per place 213 first choices 224 places 2018/19 1.16 per place 253 first choices 219 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 216 first choices 227 places 2020/21 1.06 per place 246 first choices 233 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 205 first choices 211 places 2022/23 0.99 per place 202 first choices 204 places 2023/24 0.97 per place 181 first choices 186 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 180 first choices 183 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 195 first choices 188 places 2026/27 0.98 per place 172 first choices 175 places
First preferences per place at Cockermouth School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 172 first preferences for 175 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Cockermouth School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 215 223 215 1.04
2016/17 211 190 189 0.9
2017/18 224 213 213 0.95
2018/19 219 253 219 1.16
2019/20 227 216 216 0.95
2020/21 233 246 232 1.06
2021/22 211 205 205 0.97
2022/23 204 202 202 0.99
2023/24 186 181 181 0.97
2024/25 183 180 180 0.98
2025/26 188 195 186 1.04
2026/27 175 172 172 0.98

Places offered

175

in 2026/27

Named first choice

172

324 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

172 of 172

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 174 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 112381.

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

1,140

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,072

94% of capacity

Unfilled places

68

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

320

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 Cockermouth 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 Cockermouth School reported 68 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94% 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 Cockermouth School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,363 places 1,399 on roll 2010/11 1,423 places 1,410 on roll 2011/12 1,423 places 1,417 on roll 2012/13 1,423 places 1,417 on roll 2013/14 1,423 places 1,395 on roll 2014/15 1,500 places 1,350 on roll 2015/16 1,423 places 1,347 on roll 2016/17 1,423 places 1,335 on roll 2017/18 1,423 places 1,310 on roll 2018/19 1,423 places 1,309 on roll 2020/21 1,423 places 1,326 on roll 2021/22 1,423 places 1,335 on roll 2022/23 1,423 places 1,320 on roll 2023/24 1,423 places 1,283 on roll 2024/25 1,460 places 1,278 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
Cumberland

Postcode CA13 9HF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142306).

Other contested secondary schools in Cumberland

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.