School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 98 and 107 put it first.

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

1.09

first choices for every place available

107 first preferences for 98 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary 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 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

All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 2 of those years. In the other 3 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 All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary 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 0.74 per place 55 first choices 74 places 2016/17 0.8 per place 80 first choices 100 places 2017/18 0.91 per place 90 first choices 99 places 2018/19 0.87 per place 86 first choices 99 places 2019/20 1.27 per place 126 first choices 99 places 2020/21 0.89 per place 89 first choices 100 places 2021/22 0.84 per place 83 first choices 99 places 2022/23 0.75 per place 73 first choices 97 places 2023/24 0.7 per place 73 first choices 104 places 2024/25 0.86 per place 86 first choices 100 places 2025/26 0.95 per place 97 first choices 102 places 2026/27 1.09 per place 107 first choices 98 places
First preferences per place at All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 107 first preferences for 98 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary 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 74 55 55 0.74
2016/17 100 80 73 0.8
2017/18 99 90 77 0.91
2018/19 99 86 64 0.87
2019/20 99 126 89 1.27
2020/21 100 89 84 0.89
2021/22 99 83 76 0.84
2022/23 97 73 73 0.75
2023/24 104 73 69 0.7
2024/25 100 86 81 0.86
2025/26 102 97 82 0.95
2026/27 98 107 90 1.09

Places offered

98

in 2026/27

Named first choice

107

446 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.1%

90 of 107

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 98 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 119797.

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

675

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

498

73.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

177

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 All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary 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 All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy reported 177 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 73.8% 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 All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 350 700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 580 places 438 on roll 2010/11 581 places 431 on roll 2011/12 581 places 442 on roll 2012/13 577 places 435 on roll 2013/14 577 places 430 on roll 2014/15 588 places 427 on roll 2015/16 588 places 435 on roll 2016/17 588 places 450 on roll 2017/18 588 places 453 on roll 2018/19 607 places 471 on roll 2020/21 628 places 489 on roll 2021/22 607 places 489 on roll 2022/23 607 places 489 on roll 2023/24 607 places 493 on roll 2024/25 675 places 498 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
Lancashire

Postcode BB4 6SJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147565).

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.