School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Landau Forte College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 355 families who named Landau Forte College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 180 and 517 put it first.

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

2.87

first choices for every place available

517 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Landau Forte College

There is no published appeal success rate for Landau Forte 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 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

Landau Forte 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 Landau Forte College, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.89 per place 313 first choices 166 places 2016/17 1.69 per place 283 first choices 167 places 2017/18 2.1 per place 342 first choices 163 places 2018/19 2.3 per place 377 first choices 164 places 2019/20 2.31 per place 413 first choices 179 places 2020/21 2.47 per place 465 first choices 188 places 2021/22 2.58 per place 496 first choices 192 places 2022/23 1.61 per place 408 first choices 253 places 2023/24 2.42 per place 471 first choices 195 places 2024/25 2.57 per place 452 first choices 176 places 2025/26 2.55 per place 487 first choices 191 places 2026/27 2.87 per place 517 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Landau Forte College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 517 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Landau Forte College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 166 313 152 1.89
2016/17 167 283 142 1.69
2017/18 163 342 148 2.1
2018/19 164 377 139 2.3
2019/20 179 413 165 2.31
2020/21 188 465 168 2.47
2021/22 192 496 178 2.58
2022/23 253 408 225 1.61
2023/24 195 471 175 2.42
2024/25 176 452 167 2.57
2025/26 191 487 173 2.55
2026/27 180 517 162 2.87

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

517

1,213 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

31.3%

162 of 517

Offers to families outside the council

9%

16 of 177 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

1,068

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,050

98.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

18

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

157

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 Landau Forte 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 Landau Forte College reported 18 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.3% 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 Landau Forte College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,125 places 1,094 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 1,141 on roll 2011/12 1,125 places 1,132 on roll 2012/13 1,122 places 1,127 on roll 2013/14 1,125 places 1,128 on roll 2014/15 1,125 places 1,122 on roll 2015/16 1,125 places 1,112 on roll 2016/17 1,125 places 1,099 on roll 2017/18 1,125 places 1,064 on roll 2018/19 1,125 places 1,094 on roll 2020/21 1,265 places 1,143 on roll 2021/22 1,265 places 1,129 on roll 2022/23 1,265 places 1,192 on roll 2023/24 1,265 places 1,242 on roll 2024/25 1,225 places 1,239 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Derby

Postcode DE1 2LF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135120).

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.