School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Saint Michael's Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 35 families who named Saint Michael's Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 174 and 188 put it first.

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

1.08

first choices for every place available

188 first preferences for 174 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Saint Michael's Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Saint Michael's Catholic 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 Hertfordshire 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 Hertfordshire, 21% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 314 of 1,496 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 Hertfordshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Hertfordshire 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

Saint Michael's Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 3 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 Saint Michael's Catholic 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 1.03 per place 184 first choices 178 places 2016/17 1.17 per place 214 first choices 183 places 2017/18 1.1 per place 197 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.17 per place 210 first choices 179 places 2019/20 1.2 per place 213 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 210 first choices 176 places 2021/22 0.98 per place 174 first choices 177 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 195 first choices 174 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 165 first choices 172 places 2024/25 1.01 per place 175 first choices 173 places 2025/26 0.98 per place 171 first choices 175 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 188 first choices 174 places
First preferences per place at Saint Michael's Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 188 first preferences for 174 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Saint Michael's Catholic 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
2015/16 178 184 154 1.03
2016/17 183 214 166 1.17
2017/18 179 197 160 1.1
2018/19 179 210 166 1.17
2019/20 178 213 165 1.2
2020/21 176 210 164 1.19
2021/22 177 174 148 0.98
2022/23 174 195 158 1.12
2023/24 172 165 148 0.96
2024/25 173 175 148 1.01
2025/26 175 171 143 0.98
2026/27 174 188 153 1.08

Places offered

174

in 2026/27

Named first choice

188

501 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.4%

153 of 188

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 174 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

885

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

904

102.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

19

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

215

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 Saint Michael's Catholic 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 Saint Michael's Catholic High School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Saint Michael's Catholic High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,092 places 1,103 on roll 2012/13 1,092 places 1,114 on roll 2013/14 1,092 places 1,118 on roll 2014/15 1,092 places 1,115 on roll 2015/16 1,092 places 1,129 on roll 2016/17 1,092 places 1,128 on roll 2017/18 1,092 places 1,108 on roll 2018/19 1,100 places 1,073 on roll 2020/21 1,100 places 1,090 on roll 2021/22 1,100 places 1,121 on roll 2022/23 1,100 places 1,123 on roll 2023/24 1,100 places 1,107 on roll 2024/25 1,100 places 1,119 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Hertfordshire

Postcode WD25 0SS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137922).

Other contested secondary schools in Hertfordshire

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.