School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 185 families who named St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 341 and 516 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.

1.51

first choices for every place available

516 first preferences for 341 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy, 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

St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy 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 St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy, 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 1.53 per place 412 first choices 270 places 2016/17 1.57 per place 461 first choices 294 places 2017/18 1.67 per place 512 first choices 307 places 2018/19 1.62 per place 486 first choices 300 places 2019/20 1.43 per place 509 first choices 357 places 2020/21 1.55 per place 556 first choices 358 places 2021/22 1.41 per place 492 first choices 349 places 2022/23 1.41 per place 485 first choices 345 places 2023/24 1.61 per place 558 first choices 347 places 2024/25 1.51 per place 520 first choices 345 places 2025/26 1.71 per place 588 first choices 344 places 2026/27 1.51 per place 516 first choices 341 places
First preferences per place at St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 516 first preferences for 341 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 270 412 263 1.53
2016/17 294 461 286 1.57
2017/18 307 512 301 1.67
2018/19 300 486 294 1.62
2019/20 357 509 351 1.43
2020/21 358 556 353 1.55
2021/22 349 492 343 1.41
2022/23 345 485 340 1.41
2023/24 347 558 340 1.61
2024/25 345 520 335 1.51
2025/26 344 588 342 1.71
2026/27 341 516 331 1.51

Places offered

341

in 2026/27

Named first choice

516

1,087 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

64.1%

331 of 516

Offers to families outside the council

14%

49 of 341 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 118117.

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

1,800

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,894

105.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

94

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

600

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 St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy 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 St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Mary's College Voluntary Catholic Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,250 2,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,452 places 1,585 on roll 2010/11 1,588 places 1,588 on roll 2011/12 1,452 places 1,599 on roll 2012/13 1,474 places 1,593 on roll 2013/14 1,550 places 1,618 on roll 2014/15 1,550 places 1,716 on roll 2015/16 1,852 places 1,826 on roll 2016/17 1,852 places 1,906 on roll 2017/18 2,000 places 1,967 on roll 2018/19 2,000 places 2,069 on roll 2020/21 2,400 places 2,359 on roll 2021/22 2,400 places 2,475 on roll 2022/23 2,430 places 2,489 on roll 2023/24 2,400 places 2,465 on roll 2024/25 2,400 places 2,429 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
Kingston upon Hull, City of

Postcode HU6 7TN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144104).

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.