School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 34 families who named Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 173 and 206 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.

1.19

first choices for every place available

206 first preferences for 173 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School

There is no published appeal success rate for Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary 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

Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School 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 Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary 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 0.8 per place 117 first choices 146 places 2016/17 0.81 per place 137 first choices 170 places 2017/18 0.89 per place 110 first choices 124 places 2018/19 0.82 per place 143 first choices 175 places 2019/20 0.99 per place 192 first choices 193 places 2020/21 0.88 per place 180 first choices 204 places 2021/22 0.98 per place 179 first choices 182 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 208 first choices 189 places 2023/24 1.42 per place 256 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.31 per place 238 first choices 181 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 180 first choices 173 places 2026/27 1.19 per place 206 first choices 173 places
First preferences per place at Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 206 first preferences for 173 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 146 117 117 0.8
2016/17 170 137 137 0.81
2017/18 124 110 110 0.89
2018/19 175 143 143 0.82
2019/20 193 192 178 0.99
2020/21 204 180 180 0.88
2021/22 182 179 168 0.98
2022/23 189 208 179 1.1
2023/24 180 256 170 1.42
2024/25 181 238 180 1.31
2025/26 173 180 170 1.04
2026/27 173 206 172 1.19

Places offered

173

in 2026/27

Named first choice

206

433 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.5%

172 of 206

Offers to families outside the council

27%

47 of 173 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

1,693

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,661

98.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

32

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

275

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 Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary 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 Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School reported 32 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.1% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Hessle High School and Penshurst Primary School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,000 2,000 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,503 places 1,466 on roll 2012/13 1,503 places 1,449 on roll 2013/14 1,503 places 1,369 on roll 2014/15 1,503 places 1,230 on roll 2015/16 1,923 places 1,540 on roll 2016/17 1,923 places 1,499 on roll 2017/18 1,934 places 1,425 on roll 2018/19 1,934 places 1,525 on roll 2020/21 1,945 places 1,675 on roll 2021/22 1,945 places 1,766 on roll 2022/23 1,945 places 1,845 on roll 2023/24 1,945 places 1,824 on roll 2024/25 1,968 places 1,821 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
East Riding of Yorkshire

Postcode HU13 0JQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137306).

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.