School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 11 families who named Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 248 and 248 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

first choices for every place available

248 first preferences for 248 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, 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

Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy turned first-choice families away in 10 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 Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, 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 1.19 per place 299 first choices 251 places 2016/17 1.38 per place 343 first choices 248 places 2017/18 1.38 per place 346 first choices 250 places 2018/19 1.27 per place 318 first choices 250 places 2019/20 1.09 per place 273 first choices 250 places 2020/21 1.07 per place 265 first choices 248 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 276 first choices 279 places 2022/23 1 per place 246 first choices 245 places 2023/24 1.09 per place 271 first choices 249 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 261 first choices 246 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 265 first choices 245 places 2026/27 1 per place 248 first choices 248 places
First preferences per place at Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 248 first preferences for 248 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, 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
2015/16 251 299 241 1.19
2016/17 248 343 244 1.38
2017/18 250 346 244 1.38
2018/19 250 318 240 1.27
2019/20 250 273 237 1.09
2020/21 248 265 224 1.07
2021/22 279 276 265 0.99
2022/23 245 246 234 1
2023/24 249 271 242 1.09
2024/25 246 261 236 1.06
2025/26 245 265 222 1.08
2026/27 248 248 237 1

Places offered

248

in 2026/27

Named first choice

248

757 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.6%

237 of 248

Offers to families outside the council

2%

5 of 248 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 134997.

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

1,307

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,270

97.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

37

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 Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, 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 Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy reported 37 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.2% 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 Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,580 places 1,273 on roll 2010/11 1,250 places 1,239 on roll 2011/12 1,250 places 1,208 on roll 2012/13 1,295 places 1,208 on roll 2013/14 1,295 places 1,207 on roll 2014/15 1,290 places 1,234 on roll 2015/16 1,290 places 1,251 on roll 2016/17 1,290 places 1,260 on roll 2017/18 1,290 places 1,278 on roll 2018/19 1,254 places 1,265 on roll 2020/21 1,250 places 1,266 on roll 2021/22 1,250 places 1,282 on roll 2022/23 1,250 places 1,268 on roll 2023/24 1,250 places 1,278 on roll 2024/25 1,307 places 1,270 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 BB10 3AA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147581).

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.