School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at King Edward VI Community College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 18 families who named King Edward VI Community College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 173 and 179 put it first.

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

1.03

first choices for every place available

179 first preferences for 173 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at King Edward VI Community College

There is no published appeal success rate for King Edward VI 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

King Edward VI Community College turned first-choice families away in 5 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 King Edward VI 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 0.87 per place 154 first choices 178 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 173 first choices 194 places 2017/18 0.82 per place 159 first choices 195 places 2018/19 0.84 per place 127 first choices 151 places 2019/20 0.96 per place 123 first choices 128 places 2020/21 0.85 per place 122 first choices 144 places 2021/22 0.85 per place 125 first choices 147 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 137 first choices 135 places 2023/24 1.24 per place 170 first choices 137 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 205 first choices 174 places 2025/26 1.01 per place 169 first choices 167 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 179 first choices 173 places
First preferences per place at King Edward VI Community College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 179 first preferences for 173 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at King Edward VI 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
2015/16 178 154 154 0.87
2016/17 194 173 171 0.89
2017/18 195 159 159 0.82
2018/19 151 127 127 0.84
2019/20 128 123 123 0.96
2020/21 144 122 122 0.85
2021/22 147 125 125 0.85
2022/23 135 137 118 1.01
2023/24 137 170 126 1.24
2024/25 174 205 168 1.18
2025/26 167 169 157 1.01
2026/27 173 179 161 1.03

Places offered

173

in 2026/27

Named first choice

179

323 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.9%

161 of 179

Offers to families outside the council

10%

18 of 173 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 113520.

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

1,322

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

758

57.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

564

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

230

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 King Edward VI 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 King Edward VI Community College reported 564 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 57.3% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at King Edward VI Community College 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 1,795 places 1,783 on roll 2010/11 1,833 places 1,837 on roll 2011/12 1,850 places 1,843 on roll 2012/13 1,742 places 1,600 on roll 2013/14 1,742 places 1,424 on roll 2014/15 1,742 places 1,270 on roll 2015/16 1,742 places 1,190 on roll 2016/17 1,742 places 1,142 on roll 2017/18 1,742 places 1,052 on roll 2018/19 1,742 places 976 on roll 2020/21 1,552 places 919 on roll 2021/22 1,552 places 906 on roll 2022/23 1,552 places 923 on roll 2023/24 1,552 places 911 on roll 2024/25 1,552 places 895 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 TQ9 5JX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149247).

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.