School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chellaston Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 31 families who named Chellaston Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 288 and 302 put it first.

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

1.05

first choices for every place available

302 first preferences for 288 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chellaston Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Chellaston 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 Derby 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 Derby, 17.8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 159 of 892 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 Derby.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Derby 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

Chellaston Academy 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 Chellaston 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 1.19 per place 333 first choices 279 places 2016/17 1.14 per place 314 first choices 276 places 2017/18 1.18 per place 313 first choices 266 places 2018/19 1.24 per place 382 first choices 308 places 2019/20 1.76 per place 347 first choices 197 places 2020/21 1.1 per place 328 first choices 297 places 2021/22 1.13 per place 337 first choices 299 places 2022/23 1.11 per place 330 first choices 297 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 311 first choices 297 places 2024/25 1.05 per place 310 first choices 296 places 2025/26 1.02 per place 301 first choices 295 places 2026/27 1.05 per place 302 first choices 288 places
First preferences per place at Chellaston Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 302 first preferences for 288 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chellaston Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 279 333 278 1.19
2016/17 276 314 274 1.14
2017/18 266 313 263 1.18
2018/19 308 382 308 1.24
2019/20 197 347 196 1.76
2020/21 297 328 287 1.1
2021/22 299 337 293 1.13
2022/23 297 330 296 1.11
2023/24 297 311 288 1.05
2024/25 296 310 291 1.05
2025/26 295 301 287 1.02
2026/27 288 302 271 1.05

Places offered

288

in 2026/27

Named first choice

302

520 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.7%

271 of 302

Offers to families outside the council

40%

115 of 288 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 136360.

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

1,500

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,499

99.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

1

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Chellaston 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 Chellaston Academy reported 1 unfilled place across Years 7 to 11, at 99.9% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chellaston Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,650 places 1,712 on roll 2011/12 1,640 places 1,741 on roll 2012/13 1,650 places 1,736 on roll 2013/14 1,650 places 1,675 on roll 2014/15 1,650 places 1,681 on roll 2015/16 1,650 places 1,676 on roll 2016/17 1,650 places 1,655 on roll 2017/18 1,650 places 1,664 on roll 2018/19 1,650 places 1,716 on roll 2020/21 1,860 places 1,730 on roll 2021/22 1,860 places 1,743 on roll 2022/23 1,860 places 1,781 on roll 2023/24 1,860 places 1,804 on roll 2024/25 1,860 places 1,820 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
Derby

Postcode DE73 5UB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 148639).

Other contested secondary schools in Derby

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.