School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St John Henry Newman Catholic School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named St John Henry Newman Catholic School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 114 and 126 put it first.

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

1.11

first choices for every place available

126 first preferences for 114 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St John Henry Newman Catholic School

There is no published appeal success rate for St John Henry Newman Catholic 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

St John Henry Newman Catholic School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 2 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 St John Henry Newman Catholic 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 1.14 per place 134 first choices 118 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 117 first choices 118 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 115 first choices 119 places 2018/19 0.9 per place 70 first choices 78 places 2019/20 0.8 per place 68 first choices 85 places 2020/21 1.12 per place 134 first choices 120 places 2021/22 0.98 per place 141 first choices 144 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 148 first choices 147 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 137 first choices 114 places 2024/25 1.21 per place 138 first choices 114 places 2025/26 0.98 per place 112 first choices 114 places 2026/27 1.11 per place 126 first choices 114 places
First preferences per place at St John Henry Newman Catholic School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 126 first preferences for 114 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St John Henry Newman Catholic School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 118 134 98 1.14
2016/17 118 117 100 0.99
2017/18 119 115 96 0.97
2018/19 78 70 70 0.9
2019/20 85 68 68 0.8
2020/21 120 134 111 1.12
2021/22 144 141 139 0.98
2022/23 147 148 138 1.01
2023/24 114 137 114 1.2
2024/25 114 138 113 1.21
2025/26 114 112 112 0.98
2026/27 114 126 109 1.11

Places offered

114

in 2026/27

Named first choice

126

247 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.5%

109 of 126

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 114 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

600

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

667

111.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

67

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

185

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 St John Henry Newman Catholic 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 St John Henry Newman Catholic School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St John Henry Newman Catholic School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 591 places 533 on roll 2010/11 680 places 560 on roll 2011/12 680 places 570 on roll 2012/13 680 places 598 on roll 2013/14 680 places 608 on roll 2014/15 680 places 608 on roll 2015/16 680 places 608 on roll 2016/17 680 places 584 on roll 2017/18 785 places 546 on roll 2018/19 785 places 526 on roll 2020/21 785 places 548 on roll 2021/22 785 places 606 on roll 2022/23 785 places 641 on roll 2023/24 785 places 693 on roll 2024/25 785 places 689 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Cumberland

Postcode CA2 4NL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 112399).

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.