School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Haughton Academy?

In 2026/27, Haughton Academy offered 187 places and 181 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.97

first choices for every place available

181 first preferences for 187 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Haughton Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Haughton 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 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

Haughton Academy turned first-choice families away in 2 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 Haughton 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 0.71 per place 125 first choices 175 places 2016/17 0.7 per place 121 first choices 172 places 2017/18 0.86 per place 132 first choices 153 places 2018/19 0.83 per place 140 first choices 169 places 2019/20 0.73 per place 106 first choices 145 places 2020/21 0.91 per place 160 first choices 176 places 2021/22 0.95 per place 143 first choices 150 places 2022/23 0.98 per place 170 first choices 174 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 210 first choices 206 places 2024/25 1.01 per place 200 first choices 198 places 2025/26 0.94 per place 155 first choices 165 places 2026/27 0.97 per place 181 first choices 187 places
First preferences per place at Haughton Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 181 first preferences for 187 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Haughton Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 175 125 125 0.71
2016/17 172 121 121 0.7
2017/18 153 132 132 0.86
2018/19 169 140 140 0.83
2019/20 145 106 106 0.73
2020/21 176 160 159 0.91
2021/22 150 143 143 0.95
2022/23 174 170 170 0.98
2023/24 206 210 194 1.02
2024/25 198 200 197 1.01
2025/26 165 155 155 0.94
2026/27 187 181 181 0.97

Places offered

187

in 2026/27

Named first choice

181

291 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

181 of 181

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 187 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

878

97.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

22

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 Haughton 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 Haughton Academy reported 22 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.6% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Haughton Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 900 places 837 on roll 2012/13 900 places 776 on roll 2013/14 900 places 711 on roll 2014/15 900 places 735 on roll 2015/16 900 places 720 on roll 2016/17 900 places 728 on roll 2017/18 900 places 769 on roll 2018/19 900 places 810 on roll 2020/21 900 places 815 on roll 2021/22 900 places 830 on roll 2022/23 900 places 846 on roll 2023/24 900 places 857 on roll 2024/25 900 places 878 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
Darlington

Postcode DL1 2AN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138089).

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.