School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Clyst Vale Community College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 5 families who named Clyst Vale Community College as their first choice did not get a place: 164 put it first and 159 of them were offered one.

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

5

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

164 first preferences for 179 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Clyst Vale Community College

There is no published appeal success rate for Clyst Vale 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

Clyst Vale Community 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 Clyst Vale 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 0.92 per place 111 first choices 121 places 2016/17 0.9 per place 142 first choices 157 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 149 first choices 170 places 2018/19 0.89 per place 130 first choices 146 places 2019/20 0.87 per place 155 first choices 179 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 168 first choices 171 places 2021/22 0.87 per place 145 first choices 167 places 2022/23 0.96 per place 163 first choices 169 places 2023/24 1.19 per place 191 first choices 160 places 2024/25 1.11 per place 189 first choices 170 places 2025/26 0.88 per place 181 first choices 206 places 2026/27 0.92 per place 164 first choices 179 places
First preferences per place at Clyst Vale Community College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 164 first preferences for 179 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Clyst Vale 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
2015/16 121 111 110 0.92
2016/17 157 142 142 0.9
2017/18 170 149 149 0.88
2018/19 146 130 129 0.89
2019/20 179 155 155 0.87
2020/21 171 168 156 0.98
2021/22 167 145 145 0.87
2022/23 169 163 149 0.96
2023/24 160 191 141 1.19
2024/25 170 189 159 1.11
2025/26 206 181 181 0.88
2026/27 179 164 159 0.92

Places offered

179

in 2026/27

Named first choice

164

344 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

97%

159 of 164

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 179 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

1,044

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

892

85.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

152

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

150

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 Clyst Vale 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 Clyst Vale Community College reported 152 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 85.4% 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 Clyst Vale Community College from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 963 places 979 on roll 2011/12 980 places 1,006 on roll 2012/13 1,187 places 1,015 on roll 2013/14 980 places 979 on roll 2014/15 1,154 places 959 on roll 2015/16 1,154 places 920 on roll 2016/17 1,194 places 863 on roll 2017/18 1,194 places 862 on roll 2018/19 1,194 places 872 on roll 2020/21 1,194 places 941 on roll 2021/22 1,194 places 966 on roll 2022/23 1,194 places 966 on roll 2023/24 1,194 places 957 on roll 2024/25 1,194 places 941 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 EX5 3AJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136638).

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.