School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Peter's Church of England Aided School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 103 families who named St Peter's Church of England Aided School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 236 and 335 put it first.

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

1.42

first choices for every place available

335 first preferences for 236 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Peter's Church of England Aided 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

St Peter's Church of England Aided 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 St Peter's Church of England Aided 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 1.06 per place 263 first choices 249 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 255 first choices 252 places 2017/18 1.15 per place 292 first choices 253 places 2018/19 1.17 per place 305 first choices 260 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 303 first choices 261 places 2020/21 1.42 per place 354 first choices 249 places 2021/22 1 per place 245 first choices 244 places 2022/23 1.33 per place 322 first choices 243 places 2023/24 1.43 per place 345 first choices 241 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 343 first choices 252 places 2025/26 1.25 per place 303 first choices 242 places 2026/27 1.42 per place 335 first choices 236 places
First preferences per place at St Peter's Church of England Aided School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 335 first preferences for 236 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Peter's Church of England Aided School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 249 263 243 1.06
2016/17 252 255 252 1.01
2017/18 253 292 248 1.15
2018/19 260 305 255 1.17
2019/20 261 303 246 1.16
2020/21 249 354 247 1.42
2021/22 244 245 223 1
2022/23 243 322 234 1.33
2023/24 241 345 236 1.43
2024/25 252 343 245 1.36
2025/26 242 303 228 1.25
2026/27 236 335 232 1.42

Places offered

236

in 2026/27

Named first choice

335

570 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

69.3%

232 of 335

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 236 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

1,300

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,305

100.4% of capacity

Over its capacity by

5

reported as full or beyond

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 St Peter's Church of England Aided 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 St Peter's Church of England Aided School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Peter's Church of England Aided School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,225 places 1,233 on roll 2010/11 1,225 places 1,226 on roll 2011/12 1,225 places 1,230 on roll 2012/13 1,250 places 1,232 on roll 2013/14 1,250 places 1,244 on roll 2014/15 1,250 places 1,241 on roll 2015/16 1,250 places 1,237 on roll 2016/17 1,250 places 1,258 on roll 2017/18 1,250 places 1,266 on roll 2018/19 1,300 places 1,261 on roll 2020/21 1,300 places 1,297 on roll 2021/22 1,300 places 1,300 on roll 2022/23 1,300 places 1,297 on roll 2023/24 1,300 places 1,304 on roll 2024/25 1,300 places 1,305 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Devon

Postcode EX2 5AP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 113553).

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.