School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Malet Lambert?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 66 families who named Malet Lambert as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 335 and 390 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

390 first preferences for 335 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Malet Lambert

There is no published appeal success rate for Malet Lambert, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Kingston upon Hull, City 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 Kingston upon Hull, City of, 24.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 220 of 901 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 Kingston upon Hull, City of.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Kingston upon Hull, City 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

Malet Lambert 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 Malet Lambert, 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 1.26 per place 377 first choices 300 places 2016/17 1.26 per place 374 first choices 298 places 2017/18 1.16 per place 343 first choices 296 places 2018/19 1.11 per place 326 first choices 295 places 2019/20 1.11 per place 385 first choices 346 places 2020/21 1.12 per place 353 first choices 316 places 2021/22 1.07 per place 374 first choices 348 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 389 first choices 346 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 393 first choices 355 places 2024/25 1.1 per place 374 first choices 341 places 2025/26 1.15 per place 399 first choices 348 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 390 first choices 335 places
First preferences per place at Malet Lambert. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 390 first preferences for 335 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Malet Lambert, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 300 377 279 1.26
2016/17 298 374 291 1.26
2017/18 296 343 275 1.16
2018/19 295 326 281 1.11
2019/20 346 385 339 1.11
2020/21 316 353 307 1.12
2021/22 348 374 340 1.07
2022/23 346 389 336 1.12
2023/24 355 393 334 1.11
2024/25 341 374 322 1.1
2025/26 348 399 328 1.15
2026/27 335 390 324 1.16

Places offered

335

in 2026/27

Named first choice

390

722 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.1%

324 of 390

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 335 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 118069.

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

1,750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,647

94.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

103

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 Malet Lambert 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 Malet Lambert reported 103 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.1% 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 Malet Lambert 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 1,400 places 1,456 on roll 2010/11 1,400 places 1,464 on roll 2011/12 1,400 places 1,454 on roll 2012/13 1,500 places 1,459 on roll 2013/14 1,500 places 1,452 on roll 2014/15 1,535 places 1,452 on roll 2015/16 1,500 places 1,481 on roll 2016/17 1,500 places 1,483 on roll 2017/18 1,500 places 1,456 on roll 2018/19 1,600 places 1,448 on roll 2020/21 1,600 places 1,525 on roll 2021/22 1,600 places 1,586 on roll 2022/23 1,750 places 1,635 on roll 2023/24 1,750 places 1,666 on roll 2024/25 1,750 places 1,647 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
Kingston upon Hull, City of

Postcode HU8 0JD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142150).

Other contested secondary schools in Kingston upon Hull, City 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.