School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Whitecross Hereford?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 11 families who named Whitecross Hereford as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 186 and 193 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.

1.04

first choices for every place available

193 first preferences for 186 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Whitecross Hereford

There is no published appeal success rate for Whitecross Hereford, 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

Whitecross Hereford turned first-choice families away in 10 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 Whitecross Hereford, 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 0.99 per place 137 first choices 139 places 2016/17 1.16 per place 165 first choices 142 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 183 first choices 188 places 2018/19 1.28 per place 239 first choices 186 places 2019/20 1.45 per place 274 first choices 189 places 2020/21 1.35 per place 253 first choices 187 places 2021/22 1.21 per place 223 first choices 185 places 2022/23 1.36 per place 255 first choices 187 places 2023/24 1.1 per place 207 first choices 188 places 2024/25 1.05 per place 197 first choices 187 places 2025/26 1.23 per place 226 first choices 183 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 193 first choices 186 places
First preferences per place at Whitecross Hereford. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 193 first preferences for 186 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Whitecross Hereford, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 139 137 137 0.99
2016/17 142 165 135 1.16
2017/18 188 183 183 0.97
2018/19 186 239 183 1.28
2019/20 189 274 187 1.45
2020/21 187 253 187 1.35
2021/22 185 223 181 1.21
2022/23 187 255 183 1.36
2023/24 188 207 177 1.1
2024/25 187 197 177 1.05
2025/26 183 226 182 1.23
2026/27 186 193 182 1.04

Places offered

186

in 2026/27

Named first choice

193

343 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

94.3%

182 of 193

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 186 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

945

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

935

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

10

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 Whitecross Hereford 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 Whitecross Hereford reported 10 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.9% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Whitecross Hereford from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 900 places 849 on roll 2013/14 900 places 827 on roll 2014/15 900 places 837 on roll 2015/16 900 places 847 on roll 2016/17 900 places 873 on roll 2017/18 900 places 898 on roll 2018/19 918 places 927 on roll 2020/21 945 places 947 on roll 2021/22 945 places 937 on roll 2022/23 945 places 934 on roll 2023/24 945 places 944 on roll 2024/25 945 places 935 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
Herefordshire, County of

Postcode HR4 0RN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 139189).

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.