School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Alder Grange School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 38 families who named Alder Grange School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 142 and 177 put it first.

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

1.25

first choices for every place available

177 first preferences for 142 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Alder Grange School

There is no published appeal success rate for Alder Grange 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 Lancashire 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 Lancashire, 28.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 768 of 2,706 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 Lancashire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Lancashire 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

Alder Grange School turned first-choice families away in 11 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 Alder Grange 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 1.3 per place 175 first choices 135 places 2016/17 1.19 per place 161 first choices 135 places 2017/18 1.29 per place 175 first choices 136 places 2018/19 1.44 per place 192 first choices 133 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 150 first choices 134 places 2020/21 0.97 per place 140 first choices 145 places 2021/22 1.08 per place 156 first choices 145 places 2022/23 1.29 per place 183 first choices 142 places 2023/24 1.37 per place 198 first choices 145 places 2024/25 1.27 per place 180 first choices 142 places 2025/26 1.5 per place 218 first choices 145 places 2026/27 1.25 per place 177 first choices 142 places
First preferences per place at Alder Grange School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 177 first preferences for 142 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Alder Grange School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 135 175 131 1.3
2016/17 135 161 132 1.19
2017/18 136 175 131 1.29
2018/19 133 192 126 1.44
2019/20 134 150 109 1.12
2020/21 145 140 134 0.97
2021/22 145 156 132 1.08
2022/23 142 183 138 1.29
2023/24 145 198 138 1.37
2024/25 142 180 140 1.27
2025/26 145 218 144 1.5
2026/27 142 177 139 1.25

Places offered

142

in 2026/27

Named first choice

177

489 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.5%

139 of 177

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 142 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

808

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

735

91% of capacity

Unfilled places

73

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

147

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 Alder Grange 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 Alder Grange School reported 73 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91% 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 Alder Grange School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 675 places 685 on roll 2010/11 976 places 760 on roll 2011/12 980 places 832 on roll 2012/13 902 places 807 on roll 2013/14 902 places 817 on roll 2014/15 902 places 843 on roll 2015/16 902 places 875 on roll 2016/17 902 places 886 on roll 2017/18 902 places 860 on roll 2018/19 902 places 831 on roll 2020/21 902 places 828 on roll 2021/22 902 places 844 on roll 2022/23 902 places 842 on roll 2023/24 902 places 849 on roll 2024/25 955 places 894 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lancashire

Postcode BB4 8HW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 119722).

Other contested secondary schools in Lancashire

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.