School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Lift Ryde?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 13 families who named Lift Ryde as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 265 and 272 put it first.

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

1.03

first choices for every place available

272 first preferences for 265 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Lift Ryde

There is no published appeal success rate for Lift Ryde, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Isle of Wight 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 Isle of Wight, 28.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 39 of 139 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 Isle of Wight.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Isle of Wight 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

Lift Ryde turned first-choice families away in 6 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 Lift Ryde, 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 0.97 per place 127 first choices 131 places 2016/17 0.97 per place 155 first choices 159 places 2017/18 0.94 per place 171 first choices 182 places 2018/19 0.95 per place 210 first choices 221 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 247 first choices 260 places 2020/21 0.97 per place 249 first choices 256 places 2021/22 1.12 per place 293 first choices 261 places 2022/23 1.03 per place 274 first choices 266 places 2023/24 1.08 per place 285 first choices 264 places 2024/25 1.08 per place 286 first choices 265 places 2025/26 1.12 per place 295 first choices 263 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 272 first choices 265 places
First preferences per place at Lift Ryde. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 272 first preferences for 265 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Lift Ryde, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 131 127 127 0.97
2016/17 159 155 155 0.97
2017/18 182 171 171 0.94
2018/19 221 210 210 0.95
2019/20 260 247 247 0.95
2020/21 256 249 242 0.97
2021/22 261 293 253 1.12
2022/23 266 274 257 1.03
2023/24 264 285 253 1.08
2024/25 265 286 262 1.08
2025/26 263 295 261 1.12
2026/27 265 272 259 1.03

Places offered

265

in 2026/27

Named first choice

272

340 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.2%

259 of 272

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 265 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

1,480

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,312

88.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

168

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

111

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 Lift Ryde 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 Lift Ryde reported 168 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 88.6% 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 Lift Ryde from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,600 places 1,089 on roll 2012/13 1,600 places 1,108 on roll 2013/14 1,564 places 1,126 on roll 2014/15 1,564 places 982 on roll 2015/16 1,564 places 918 on roll 2016/17 1,564 places 974 on roll 2017/18 1,564 places 1,047 on roll 2018/19 1,550 places 1,150 on roll 2020/21 1,550 places 1,327 on roll 2021/22 1,550 places 1,364 on roll 2022/23 1,550 places 1,439 on roll 2023/24 1,591 places 1,469 on roll 2024/25 1,591 places 1,414 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Isle of Wight

Postcode PO33 3LN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136753).

Other contested secondary schools in Isle of Wight

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.