School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 6 families who named St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 118 and 124 put it first.

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

1.05

first choices for every place available

124 first preferences for 118 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington

There is no published appeal success rate for St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington, 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 Josephs Catholic High School, Workington turned first-choice families away in 1 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 St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington, 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 0.99 per place 143 first choices 145 places 2016/17 0.9 per place 120 first choices 134 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 117 first choices 120 places 2018/19 0.85 per place 123 first choices 145 places 2019/20 0.99 per place 136 first choices 138 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 111 first choices 113 places 2021/22 1 per place 122 first choices 122 places 2022/23 1 per place 92 first choices 92 places 2023/24 0.91 per place 81 first choices 89 places 2024/25 0.59 per place 70 first choices 119 places 2025/26 0.88 per place 92 first choices 104 places 2026/27 1.05 per place 124 first choices 118 places
First preferences per place at St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 124 first preferences for 118 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 145 143 143 0.99
2016/17 134 120 120 0.9
2017/18 120 117 117 0.97
2018/19 145 123 123 0.85
2019/20 138 136 136 0.99
2020/21 113 111 111 0.98
2021/22 122 122 122 1
2022/23 92 92 92 1
2023/24 89 81 81 0.91
2024/25 119 70 70 0.59
2025/26 104 92 92 0.88
2026/27 118 124 118 1.05

Places offered

118

in 2026/27

Named first choice

124

238 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.2%

118 of 124

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 118 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 112401.

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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

522

69.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

228

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 St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington 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 Josephs Catholic High School, Workington reported 228 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 69.6% 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 St Josephs Catholic High School, Workington 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 2009/10 615 places 631 on roll 2010/11 655 places 649 on roll 2011/12 655 places 665 on roll 2012/13 675 places 645 on roll 2013/14 750 places 656 on roll 2014/15 750 places 657 on roll 2015/16 750 places 654 on roll 2016/17 750 places 659 on roll 2017/18 750 places 683 on roll 2018/19 750 places 698 on roll 2020/21 750 places 629 on roll 2021/22 750 places 596 on roll 2022/23 750 places 562 on roll 2023/24 750 places 515 on roll 2024/25 750 places 522 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Cumberland

Postcode CA14 3EE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 148703).

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.