School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Mary's RC High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 45 families who named St Mary's RC High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 146 and 189 put it first.

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

1.29

first choices for every place available

189 first preferences for 146 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Mary's RC High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Mary's RC 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 Herefordshire, County of 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 Herefordshire, County of, 19.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 27 of 137 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 Herefordshire, County of.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Herefordshire, County of 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

St Mary's RC High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at St Mary's RC 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 1.28 per place 170 first choices 133 places 2016/17 1.46 per place 200 first choices 137 places 2017/18 1.17 per place 176 first choices 151 places 2018/19 1.45 per place 211 first choices 146 places 2019/20 1.22 per place 182 first choices 149 places 2020/21 1.34 per place 195 first choices 145 places 2021/22 1.18 per place 169 first choices 143 places 2022/23 1.31 per place 192 first choices 147 places 2023/24 1.42 per place 203 first choices 143 places 2024/25 1.31 per place 195 first choices 149 places 2025/26 1.2 per place 176 first choices 147 places 2026/27 1.29 per place 189 first choices 146 places
First preferences per place at St Mary's RC High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 189 first preferences for 146 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Mary's RC 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
2015/16 133 170 133 1.28
2016/17 137 200 134 1.46
2017/18 151 176 150 1.17
2018/19 146 211 144 1.45
2019/20 149 182 147 1.22
2020/21 145 195 145 1.34
2021/22 143 169 140 1.18
2022/23 147 192 146 1.31
2023/24 143 203 143 1.42
2024/25 149 195 146 1.31
2025/26 147 176 145 1.2
2026/27 146 189 144 1.29

Places offered

146

in 2026/27

Named first choice

189

340 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

76.2%

144 of 189

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 146 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

792

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

747

94.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

45

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 St Mary's RC 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 St Mary's RC High School reported 45 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.3% 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 St Mary's RC High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 675 places 691 on roll 2010/11 675 places 712 on roll 2011/12 675 places 715 on roll 2012/13 675 places 725 on roll 2013/14 675 places 734 on roll 2014/15 675 places 748 on roll 2015/16 750 places 751 on roll 2016/17 750 places 752 on roll 2017/18 750 places 747 on roll 2018/19 752 places 744 on roll 2020/21 750 places 743 on roll 2021/22 750 places 746 on roll 2022/23 750 places 747 on roll 2023/24 750 places 747 on roll 2024/25 792 places 747 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Herefordshire, County of

Postcode HR1 4DR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 116992).

Other contested secondary schools in Herefordshire, County of

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.