School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Littleover Community School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 108 families who named Littleover Community School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 288 and 372 put it first.

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

1.29

first choices for every place available

372 first preferences for 288 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Littleover Community School

There is no published appeal success rate for Littleover Community School, 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

Littleover Community School 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 Littleover Community School, 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 1.28 per place 376 first choices 293 places 2016/17 1.38 per place 407 first choices 295 places 2017/18 1.53 per place 451 first choices 295 places 2018/19 1.68 per place 488 first choices 291 places 2019/20 1.51 per place 437 first choices 289 places 2020/21 1.49 per place 435 first choices 292 places 2021/22 1.34 per place 385 first choices 287 places 2022/23 1.39 per place 402 first choices 289 places 2023/24 1.44 per place 422 first choices 294 places 2024/25 1.32 per place 380 first choices 287 places 2025/26 1.23 per place 362 first choices 294 places 2026/27 1.29 per place 372 first choices 288 places
First preferences per place at Littleover Community School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 372 first preferences for 288 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Littleover Community School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 293 376 286 1.28
2016/17 295 407 289 1.38
2017/18 295 451 292 1.53
2018/19 291 488 286 1.68
2019/20 289 437 284 1.51
2020/21 292 435 284 1.49
2021/22 287 385 282 1.34
2022/23 289 402 283 1.39
2023/24 294 422 284 1.44
2024/25 287 380 269 1.32
2025/26 294 362 275 1.23
2026/27 288 372 264 1.29

Places offered

288

in 2026/27

Named first choice

372

1,012 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

71%

264 of 372

Offers to families outside the council

9%

27 of 288 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

1,475

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,463

99.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

12

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

287

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 Littleover Community School 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 Littleover Community School reported 12 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.2% 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 Littleover Community School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,342 places 1,495 on roll 2010/11 1,342 places 1,505 on roll 2011/12 1,349 places 1,522 on roll 2012/13 1,349 places 1,551 on roll 2013/14 1,548 places 1,630 on roll 2014/15 1,762 places 1,681 on roll 2015/16 1,762 places 1,749 on roll 2016/17 1,762 places 1,789 on roll 2017/18 1,762 places 1,802 on roll 2018/19 1,762 places 1,812 on roll 2020/21 1,762 places 1,815 on roll 2021/22 1,762 places 1,832 on roll 2022/23 1,762 places 1,831 on roll 2023/24 1,762 places 1,812 on roll 2024/25 1,762 places 1,819 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Derby

Postcode DE23 4BZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 112956).

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.