School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 179 and 190 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

190 first preferences for 179 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Bishop Rawstorne Church of England 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

Bishop Rawstorne Church of England 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 Bishop Rawstorne Church of England 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 1.26 per place 226 first choices 180 places 2016/17 1.08 per place 195 first choices 180 places 2017/18 1.24 per place 219 first choices 177 places 2018/19 1.09 per place 207 first choices 190 places 2019/20 1.24 per place 234 first choices 189 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 218 first choices 190 places 2021/22 1.05 per place 197 first choices 187 places 2022/23 1.05 per place 198 first choices 188 places 2023/24 1.16 per place 220 first choices 190 places 2024/25 1.14 per place 215 first choices 188 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 220 first choices 182 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 190 first choices 179 places
First preferences per place at Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 190 first preferences for 179 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 180 226 178 1.26
2016/17 180 195 175 1.08
2017/18 177 219 175 1.24
2018/19 190 207 188 1.09
2019/20 189 234 187 1.24
2020/21 190 218 185 1.15
2021/22 187 197 184 1.05
2022/23 188 198 184 1.05
2023/24 190 220 187 1.16
2024/25 188 215 186 1.14
2025/26 182 220 180 1.21
2026/27 179 190 173 1.06

Places offered

179

in 2026/27

Named first choice

190

375 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.1%

173 of 190

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 179 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

930

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

960

103.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

30

reported as full or beyond

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 Bishop Rawstorne Church of England 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 Bishop Rawstorne Church of England 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 930 places 928 on roll 2012/13 930 places 928 on roll 2013/14 930 places 917 on roll 2014/15 930 places 910 on roll 2015/16 930 places 908 on roll 2016/17 930 places 909 on roll 2017/18 930 places 925 on roll 2018/19 930 places 934 on roll 2020/21 930 places 958 on roll 2021/22 930 places 957 on roll 2022/23 930 places 965 on roll 2023/24 930 places 968 on roll 2024/25 930 places 960 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 PR26 9HH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137296).

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.