School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Richard Rose Morton Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 18 families who named Richard Rose Morton Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 181 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

181 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Richard Rose Morton Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Richard Rose Morton 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 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

Richard Rose Morton Academy turned first-choice families away in 8 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 Richard Rose Morton 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 0.72 per place 85 first choices 118 places 2016/17 0.75 per place 68 first choices 91 places 2017/18 0.84 per place 121 first choices 144 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 133 first choices 138 places 2019/20 1.04 per place 188 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.21 per place 217 first choices 179 places 2021/22 1.19 per place 204 first choices 171 places 2022/23 1.23 per place 210 first choices 171 places 2023/24 1.17 per place 200 first choices 171 places 2024/25 1.04 per place 187 first choices 179 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 209 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 181 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at Richard Rose Morton Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 181 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Richard Rose Morton Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 118 85 85 0.72
2016/17 91 68 68 0.75
2017/18 144 121 121 0.84
2018/19 138 133 133 0.96
2019/20 180 188 175 1.04
2020/21 179 217 175 1.21
2021/22 171 204 170 1.19
2022/23 171 210 167 1.23
2023/24 171 200 171 1.17
2024/25 179 187 173 1.04
2025/26 200 209 195 1.04
2026/27 171 181 163 1.06

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

181

272 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.1%

163 of 181

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 171 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

905

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

876

96.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

29

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 Richard Rose Morton 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 Richard Rose Morton Academy reported 29 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.8% 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 Richard Rose Morton Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,150 places 546 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 581 on roll 2011/12 1,150 places 627 on roll 2012/13 1,150 places 695 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 568 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 526 on roll 2015/16 900 places 550 on roll 2016/17 900 places 539 on roll 2017/18 900 places 584 on roll 2018/19 900 places 645 on roll 2020/21 900 places 807 on roll 2021/22 900 places 861 on roll 2022/23 900 places 872 on roll 2023/24 900 places 887 on roll 2024/25 905 places 876 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
Cumberland

Postcode CA2 6LB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135620).

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.