School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sirius Academy West?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 1 families who named Sirius Academy West as their first choice did not get a place: 216 put it first and 215 of them were offered one.

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

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

216 first preferences for 254 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sirius Academy West

There is no published appeal success rate for Sirius Academy West, 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

Sirius Academy West turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 1 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 Sirius Academy West, 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 1.29 per place 372 first choices 289 places 2016/17 1.11 per place 323 first choices 290 places 2017/18 1.05 per place 297 first choices 284 places 2018/19 1.03 per place 286 first choices 278 places 2019/20 1.08 per place 303 first choices 280 places 2020/21 0.93 per place 268 first choices 288 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 293 first choices 302 places 2022/23 0.97 per place 278 first choices 288 places 2023/24 0.74 per place 254 first choices 342 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 280 first choices 285 places 2025/26 0.9 per place 246 first choices 273 places 2026/27 0.85 per place 216 first choices 254 places
First preferences per place at Sirius Academy West. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 216 first preferences for 254 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sirius Academy West, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 289 372 280 1.29
2016/17 290 323 260 1.11
2017/18 284 297 265 1.05
2018/19 278 286 240 1.03
2019/20 280 303 258 1.08
2020/21 288 268 253 0.93
2021/22 302 293 272 0.97
2022/23 288 278 262 0.97
2023/24 342 254 254 0.74
2024/25 285 280 246 0.98
2025/26 273 246 246 0.9
2026/27 254 216 215 0.85

Places offered

254

in 2026/27

Named first choice

216

438 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

99.5%

215 of 216

Offers to families outside the council

3%

7 of 244 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

1,465

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,344

91.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

121

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 Sirius Academy West 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 Sirius Academy West reported 121 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91.7% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Sirius Academy West from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,650 places 989 on roll 2011/12 1,450 places 1,282 on roll 2012/13 1,650 places 1,457 on roll 2013/14 1,650 places 1,522 on roll 2014/15 1,650 places 1,538 on roll 2015/16 1,650 places 1,527 on roll 2016/17 1,650 places 1,535 on roll 2017/18 1,650 places 1,543 on roll 2018/19 1,650 places 1,515 on roll 2020/21 1,600 places 1,525 on roll 2021/22 1,600 places 1,504 on roll 2022/23 1,600 places 1,466 on roll 2023/24 1,650 places 1,488 on roll 2024/25 1,665 places 1,439 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
Kingston upon Hull, City of

Postcode HU4 7JB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135945).

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.