School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Crestwood School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 32 families who named The Crestwood School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 209 and 211 put it first.

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

1.01

first choices for every place available

211 first preferences for 209 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Crestwood School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Crestwood 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 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

The Crestwood School turned first-choice families away in 6 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 The Crestwood 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 0.61 per place 104 first choices 170 places 2016/17 0.78 per place 113 first choices 144 places 2017/18 0.9 per place 144 first choices 160 places 2018/19 0.98 per place 187 first choices 191 places 2019/20 1.25 per place 239 first choices 191 places 2020/21 1.03 per place 211 first choices 204 places 2021/22 1.21 per place 248 first choices 205 places 2022/23 0.97 per place 196 first choices 202 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 238 first choices 199 places 2024/25 1.11 per place 223 first choices 200 places 2025/26 0.91 per place 181 first choices 200 places 2026/27 1.01 per place 211 first choices 209 places
First preferences per place at The Crestwood School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 211 first preferences for 209 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Crestwood School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 170 104 104 0.61
2016/17 144 113 113 0.78
2017/18 160 144 144 0.9
2018/19 191 187 187 0.98
2019/20 191 239 176 1.25
2020/21 204 211 200 1.03
2021/22 205 248 201 1.21
2022/23 202 196 196 0.97
2023/24 199 238 190 1.2
2024/25 200 223 194 1.11
2025/26 200 181 171 0.91
2026/27 209 211 179 1.01

Places offered

209

in 2026/27

Named first choice

211

484 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.8%

179 of 211

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 209 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 103856.

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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,028

97.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

22

across Years 7 to 11

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 The Crestwood 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 The Crestwood School reported 22 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.9% 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 The Crestwood School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 750 places 716 on roll 2010/11 750 places 717 on roll 2011/12 761 places 705 on roll 2012/13 761 places 687 on roll 2013/14 761 places 636 on roll 2014/15 761 places 645 on roll 2015/16 761 places 700 on roll 2016/17 750 places 705 on roll 2017/18 810 places 745 on roll 2018/19 810 places 812 on roll 2020/21 950 places 931 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 980 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,004 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,022 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,028 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Dudley

Postcode DY6 8QG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141325).

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.