School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Manningtree High School?

In 2026/27, Manningtree High School offered 202 places and 179 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.89

first choices for every place available

179 first preferences for 202 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Manningtree High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Manningtree High 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 Essex 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 Essex, 15.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 249 of 1,651 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 Essex.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Essex 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

Manningtree High School turned first-choice families away in 7 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 Manningtree High 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 0.93 per place 123 first choices 132 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 150 first choices 168 places 2017/18 1.02 per place 175 first choices 171 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 164 first choices 171 places 2019/20 1.23 per place 211 first choices 171 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 193 first choices 168 places 2021/22 1.04 per place 181 first choices 174 places 2022/23 1.2 per place 223 first choices 186 places 2023/24 1.1 per place 203 first choices 185 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 180 first choices 187 places 2025/26 1.11 per place 207 first choices 186 places 2026/27 0.89 per place 179 first choices 202 places
First preferences per place at Manningtree High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 179 first preferences for 202 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Manningtree High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 132 123 123 0.93
2016/17 168 150 150 0.89
2017/18 171 175 161 1.02
2018/19 171 164 148 0.96
2019/20 171 211 156 1.23
2020/21 168 193 160 1.15
2021/22 174 181 153 1.04
2022/23 186 223 179 1.2
2023/24 185 203 174 1.1
2024/25 187 180 168 0.96
2025/26 186 207 174 1.11
2026/27 202 179 179 0.89

Places offered

202

in 2026/27

Named first choice

179

475 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

179 of 179

Offers to families outside the council

5%

11 of 201 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

1,026

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

907

88.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

119

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 Manningtree High 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 Manningtree High School reported 119 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 88.4% 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 Manningtree High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 870 places 852 on roll 2012/13 870 places 834 on roll 2013/14 870 places 797 on roll 2014/15 870 places 760 on roll 2015/16 870 places 773 on roll 2016/17 870 places 791 on roll 2017/18 870 places 807 on roll 2018/19 870 places 832 on roll 2020/21 1,020 places 885 on roll 2021/22 1,020 places 870 on roll 2022/23 1,020 places 891 on roll 2023/24 1,020 places 902 on roll 2024/25 1,026 places 907 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
Essex

Postcode CO11 2BW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137945).

Other contested secondary schools in Essex

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.