School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Carmel College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 90 families who named Carmel College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 216 and 305 put it first.

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

1.41

first choices for every place available

305 first preferences for 216 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Carmel College

There is no published appeal success rate for Carmel College, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Darlington 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 Darlington, 33.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 35 of 105 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 Darlington.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Darlington 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

Carmel College turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Carmel College, 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 1.37 per place 258 first choices 189 places 2016/17 1.11 per place 205 first choices 185 places 2017/18 1.23 per place 219 first choices 178 places 2018/19 1.32 per place 251 first choices 190 places 2019/20 1.41 per place 282 first choices 200 places 2020/21 1.47 per place 294 first choices 200 places 2021/22 1.26 per place 264 first choices 210 places 2022/23 1.3 per place 251 first choices 193 places 2023/24 1.28 per place 254 first choices 199 places 2024/25 1.16 per place 251 first choices 216 places 2025/26 1.29 per place 281 first choices 217 places 2026/27 1.41 per place 305 first choices 216 places
First preferences per place at Carmel College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 305 first preferences for 216 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Carmel College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 189 258 189 1.37
2016/17 185 205 184 1.11
2017/18 178 219 174 1.23
2018/19 190 251 190 1.32
2019/20 200 282 197 1.41
2020/21 200 294 199 1.47
2021/22 210 264 208 1.26
2022/23 193 251 192 1.3
2023/24 199 254 196 1.28
2024/25 216 251 214 1.16
2025/26 217 281 215 1.29
2026/27 216 305 215 1.41

Places offered

216

in 2026/27

Named first choice

305

511 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.5%

215 of 305

Offers to families outside the council

9%

20 of 216 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

1,082

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,069

98.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

13

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Carmel College 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 Carmel College reported 13 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.8% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Carmel College from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,300 places 1,171 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,222 on roll 2013/14 1,200 places 1,211 on roll 2014/15 1,200 places 1,208 on roll 2015/16 1,200 places 1,227 on roll 2016/17 1,200 places 1,247 on roll 2017/18 1,200 places 1,251 on roll 2018/19 1,200 places 1,259 on roll 2020/21 1,318 places 1,367 on roll 2021/22 1,382 places 1,366 on roll 2022/23 1,382 places 1,350 on roll 2023/24 1,382 places 1,350 on roll 2024/25 1,382 places 1,358 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
Darlington

Postcode DL3 8RW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137622).

Other contested secondary schools in Darlington

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.