School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Calthorpe Park School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 26 families who named Calthorpe Park School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 336 and 355 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

355 first preferences for 336 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Calthorpe Park School

There is no published appeal success rate for Calthorpe Park 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 Hampshire 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 Hampshire, 34.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 310 of 903 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 Hampshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Hampshire 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

Calthorpe Park School turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Calthorpe Park 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 0.9 per place 236 first choices 262 places 2016/17 0.98 per place 251 first choices 256 places 2017/18 1.03 per place 279 first choices 272 places 2018/19 0.98 per place 309 first choices 314 places 2019/20 0.97 per place 304 first choices 313 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 299 first choices 301 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 321 first choices 350 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 364 first choices 359 places 2023/24 0.92 per place 333 first choices 362 places 2024/25 1.03 per place 352 first choices 341 places 2025/26 0.95 per place 332 first choices 349 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 355 first choices 336 places
First preferences per place at Calthorpe Park School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 355 first preferences for 336 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Calthorpe Park School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 262 236 225 0.9
2016/17 256 251 249 0.98
2017/18 272 279 268 1.03
2018/19 314 309 292 0.98
2019/20 313 304 274 0.97
2020/21 301 299 278 0.99
2021/22 350 321 295 0.92
2022/23 359 364 336 1.01
2023/24 362 333 296 0.92
2024/25 341 352 320 1.03
2025/26 349 332 305 0.95
2026/27 336 355 329 1.06

Places offered

336

in 2026/27

Named first choice

355

639 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.7%

329 of 355

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 336 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

1,725

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,643

95.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

82

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 Calthorpe Park 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 Calthorpe Park School reported 82 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.2% 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 Calthorpe Park School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,050 places 1,025 on roll 2010/11 1,089 places 1,033 on roll 2011/12 1,050 places 1,043 on roll 2012/13 1,050 places 1,087 on roll 2013/14 1,120 places 1,074 on roll 2014/15 1,120 places 1,084 on roll 2015/16 1,420 places 1,124 on roll 2016/17 1,270 places 1,166 on roll 2017/18 1,420 places 1,182 on roll 2018/19 1,420 places 1,251 on roll 2020/21 1,420 places 1,333 on roll 2021/22 1,720 places 1,433 on roll 2022/23 1,720 places 1,539 on roll 2023/24 1,725 places 1,594 on roll 2024/25 1,725 places 1,643 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
Hampshire

Postcode GU51 5JA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 116436).

Other contested secondary schools in Hampshire

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.