School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bishop Milner Catholic College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 88 families who named Bishop Milner Catholic College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 145 and 228 put it first.

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

1.57

first choices for every place available

228 first preferences for 145 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bishop Milner Catholic College

There is no published appeal success rate for Bishop Milner Catholic 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 Dudley 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 Dudley, 11.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 46 of 385 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 Dudley.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Dudley 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

Bishop Milner Catholic College 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 Bishop Milner Catholic 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 1.47 per place 182 first choices 124 places 2016/17 1.71 per place 229 first choices 134 places 2017/18 1.66 per place 217 first choices 131 places 2018/19 1.49 per place 205 first choices 138 places 2019/20 1.86 per place 255 first choices 137 places 2020/21 1.68 per place 232 first choices 138 places 2021/22 1.8 per place 258 first choices 143 places 2022/23 1.78 per place 248 first choices 139 places 2023/24 1.71 per place 238 first choices 139 places 2024/25 1.91 per place 271 first choices 142 places 2025/26 1.65 per place 235 first choices 142 places 2026/27 1.57 per place 228 first choices 145 places
First preferences per place at Bishop Milner Catholic College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 228 first preferences for 145 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bishop Milner Catholic College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 124 182 111 1.47
2016/17 134 229 126 1.71
2017/18 131 217 116 1.66
2018/19 138 205 120 1.49
2019/20 137 255 130 1.86
2020/21 138 232 127 1.68
2021/22 143 258 136 1.8
2022/23 139 248 132 1.78
2023/24 139 238 128 1.71
2024/25 142 271 139 1.91
2025/26 142 235 128 1.65
2026/27 145 228 140 1.57

Places offered

145

in 2026/27

Named first choice

228

511 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

61.4%

140 of 228

Offers to families outside the council

4%

6 of 145 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

678

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

747

110.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

69

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

200

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 Bishop Milner Catholic 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 Bishop Milner Catholic College 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Bishop Milner Catholic College from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 800 places 783 on roll 2014/15 800 places 820 on roll 2015/16 800 places 831 on roll 2016/17 800 places 819 on roll 2017/18 878 places 849 on roll 2018/19 878 places 864 on roll 2020/21 878 places 841 on roll 2021/22 878 places 866 on roll 2022/23 878 places 862 on roll 2023/24 878 places 854 on roll 2024/25 878 places 831 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Dudley

Postcode DY1 3BY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140126).

Other contested secondary schools in Dudley

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.