School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Colyton Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named Colyton Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 158 and 196 put it first.

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

1.24

first choices for every place available

196 first preferences for 158 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Colyton Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Colyton Grammar 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 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

Colyton Grammar 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 Colyton Grammar 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 1.16 per place 139 first choices 120 places 2016/17 1.27 per place 156 first choices 123 places 2017/18 1.35 per place 202 first choices 150 places 2018/19 1.32 per place 204 first choices 155 places 2019/20 1.27 per place 193 first choices 152 places 2020/21 1.31 per place 201 first choices 154 places 2021/22 1.88 per place 291 first choices 155 places 2022/23 1.26 per place 193 first choices 153 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 190 first choices 155 places 2024/25 1.16 per place 183 first choices 158 places 2025/26 1.31 per place 210 first choices 160 places 2026/27 1.24 per place 196 first choices 158 places
First preferences per place at Colyton Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 196 first preferences for 158 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Colyton Grammar School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 139 120 1.16
2016/17 123 156 121 1.27
2017/18 150 202 149 1.35
2018/19 155 204 154 1.32
2019/20 152 193 151 1.27
2020/21 154 201 154 1.31
2021/22 155 291 155 1.88
2022/23 153 193 151 1.26
2023/24 155 190 153 1.23
2024/25 158 183 157 1.16
2025/26 160 210 160 1.31
2026/27 158 196 157 1.24

Places offered

158

in 2026/27

Named first choice

196

228 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

80.1%

157 of 196

Offers to families outside the council

27%

42 of 158 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

845

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

783

92.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

62

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 Colyton Grammar 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 Colyton Grammar School reported 62 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 92.7% 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 Colyton Grammar School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 828 places 807 on roll 2011/12 828 places 810 on roll 2012/13 828 places 821 on roll 2013/14 828 places 821 on roll 2014/15 885 places 820 on roll 2015/16 885 places 814 on roll 2016/17 1,085 places 822 on roll 2017/18 1,085 places 868 on roll 2018/19 1,085 places 909 on roll 2020/21 1,085 places 1,000 on roll 2021/22 1,085 places 1,023 on roll 2022/23 1,085 places 1,038 on roll 2023/24 1,085 places 1,061 on roll 2024/25 1,085 places 1,070 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Devon

Postcode EX24 6HN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136366).

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.