School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bideford College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 1 families who named Bideford College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 250 and 251 put it first.

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

1

first choices for every place available

251 first preferences for 250 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bideford College

There is no published appeal success rate for Bideford 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 Devon 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 Devon, 23.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 46 of 194 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 Devon.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Devon 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

Bideford College 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 Bideford 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 0.9 per place 222 first choices 246 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 213 first choices 228 places 2017/18 0.93 per place 222 first choices 240 places 2018/19 0.98 per place 197 first choices 201 places 2019/20 0.99 per place 216 first choices 218 places 2020/21 0.94 per place 237 first choices 251 places 2021/22 0.98 per place 253 first choices 257 places 2022/23 1 per place 282 first choices 282 places 2023/24 1.08 per place 312 first choices 290 places 2024/25 1 per place 276 first choices 276 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 267 first choices 276 places 2026/27 1 per place 251 first choices 250 places
First preferences per place at Bideford College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 251 first preferences for 250 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bideford College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 246 222 222 0.9
2016/17 228 213 213 0.93
2017/18 240 222 222 0.93
2018/19 201 197 197 0.98
2019/20 218 216 216 0.99
2020/21 251 237 237 0.94
2021/22 257 253 253 0.98
2022/23 282 282 278 1
2023/24 290 312 290 1.08
2024/25 276 276 276 1
2025/26 276 267 267 0.97
2026/27 250 251 250 1

Places offered

250

in 2026/27

Named first choice

251

275 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

99.6%

250 of 251

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 250 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 113516.

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

1,992

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,294

65% of capacity

Unfilled places

698

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

240

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 Bideford 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 Bideford College reported 698 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 65% 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 Bideford College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,150 2,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,744 places 1,604 on roll 2010/11 1,854 places 1,569 on roll 2011/12 1,854 places 1,552 on roll 2012/13 2,232 places 1,483 on roll 2013/14 2,232 places 1,398 on roll 2014/15 2,232 places 1,435 on roll 2015/16 1,744 places 1,423 on roll 2016/17 2,232 places 1,306 on roll 2017/18 2,232 places 1,293 on roll 2018/19 2,232 places 1,262 on roll 2020/21 2,232 places 1,299 on roll 2021/22 2,232 places 1,364 on roll 2022/23 2,232 places 1,418 on roll 2023/24 2,232 places 1,454 on roll 2024/25 2,232 places 1,432 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
Devon

Postcode EX39 3AR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142540).

Other contested secondary schools in Devon

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.