School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Headlands School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 21 families who named Headlands School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 202 and 223 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

223 first preferences for 202 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Headlands School

There is no published appeal success rate for Headlands 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 East Riding of Yorkshire 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 East Riding of Yorkshire, 12% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 22 of 183 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 East Riding of Yorkshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not East Riding of Yorkshire 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

Headlands School turned first-choice families away in 3 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 Headlands 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 per place 133 first choices 133 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 153 first choices 155 places 2017/18 1 per place 165 first choices 165 places 2018/19 0.98 per place 138 first choices 141 places 2019/20 0.98 per place 171 first choices 175 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 165 first choices 167 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 155 first choices 159 places 2022/23 0.98 per place 186 first choices 190 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 200 first choices 190 places 2024/25 1.04 per place 200 first choices 192 places 2025/26 1 per place 187 first choices 187 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 223 first choices 202 places
First preferences per place at Headlands School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 223 first preferences for 202 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Headlands School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 133 133 133 1
2016/17 155 153 153 0.99
2017/18 165 165 165 1
2018/19 141 138 138 0.98
2019/20 175 171 171 0.98
2020/21 167 165 165 0.99
2021/22 159 155 155 0.97
2022/23 190 186 186 0.98
2023/24 190 200 189 1.05
2024/25 192 200 192 1.04
2025/26 187 187 187 1
2026/27 202 223 202 1.1

Places offered

202

in 2026/27

Named first choice

223

260 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.6%

202 of 223

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 202 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

1,201

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

964

80.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

237

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

202

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 Headlands 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 Headlands School reported 237 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 80.3% 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 Headlands School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,485 places 1,223 on roll 2010/11 1,485 places 1,219 on roll 2011/12 1,438 places 1,128 on roll 2012/13 1,488 places 1,062 on roll 2013/14 1,482 places 1,036 on roll 2014/15 1,482 places 969 on roll 2015/16 1,482 places 906 on roll 2016/17 1,482 places 894 on roll 2017/18 1,470 places 893 on roll 2018/19 1,470 places 874 on roll 2020/21 1,482 places 968 on roll 2021/22 1,482 places 1,043 on roll 2022/23 1,470 places 1,044 on roll 2023/24 1,470 places 1,018 on roll 2024/25 1,403 places 1,031 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
East Riding of Yorkshire

Postcode YO16 6UR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118085).

Other contested secondary schools in East Riding of Yorkshire

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.