School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chulmleigh Community College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 23 families who named Chulmleigh Community College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 144 and 167 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

167 first preferences for 144 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chulmleigh Community College

There is no published appeal success rate for Chulmleigh Community 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

Chulmleigh Community College turned first-choice families away in 9 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 Chulmleigh Community 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 0.97 per place 106 first choices 109 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 93 first choices 100 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 115 first choices 118 places 2018/19 1.01 per place 143 first choices 142 places 2019/20 1.01 per place 163 first choices 161 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 163 first choices 142 places 2021/22 1.16 per place 165 first choices 142 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 163 first choices 141 places 2023/24 1.04 per place 148 first choices 142 places 2024/25 1.59 per place 215 first choices 135 places 2025/26 1.22 per place 176 first choices 144 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 167 first choices 144 places
First preferences per place at Chulmleigh Community College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 167 first preferences for 144 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chulmleigh Community College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 109 106 106 0.97
2016/17 100 93 93 0.93
2017/18 118 115 115 0.97
2018/19 142 143 142 1.01
2019/20 161 163 161 1.01
2020/21 142 163 141 1.15
2021/22 142 165 142 1.16
2022/23 141 163 141 1.16
2023/24 142 148 140 1.04
2024/25 135 215 135 1.59
2025/26 144 176 142 1.22
2026/27 144 167 144 1.16

Places offered

144

in 2026/27

Named first choice

167

218 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.2%

144 of 167

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 144 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

737

98.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

13

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 Chulmleigh Community 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 Chulmleigh Community College reported 13 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chulmleigh Community College from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 600 places 576 on roll 2012/13 600 places 568 on roll 2013/14 639 places 556 on roll 2014/15 639 places 562 on roll 2015/16 639 places 555 on roll 2016/17 639 places 552 on roll 2017/18 639 places 556 on roll 2018/19 639 places 603 on roll 2020/21 639 places 701 on roll 2021/22 639 places 729 on roll 2022/23 750 places 739 on roll 2023/24 750 places 756 on roll 2024/25 750 places 737 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
Devon

Postcode EX18 7AA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137024).

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.