School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: 150 put it first and 133 of them were offered one.

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

17

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

150 first preferences for 159 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High 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

Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 3 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 2 of those years. In the other 1 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 Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High 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 0.91 per place 125 first choices 137 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 132 first choices 138 places 2017/18 0.89 per place 136 first choices 152 places 2018/19 0.79 per place 121 first choices 154 places 2019/20 0.77 per place 123 first choices 160 places 2020/21 0.74 per place 117 first choices 158 places 2021/22 0.88 per place 125 first choices 142 places 2022/23 0.93 per place 147 first choices 158 places 2023/24 0.81 per place 129 first choices 160 places 2024/25 1.07 per place 172 first choices 160 places 2025/26 1.12 per place 173 first choices 155 places 2026/27 0.94 per place 150 first choices 159 places
First preferences per place at Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 150 first preferences for 159 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 137 125 125 0.91
2016/17 138 132 132 0.96
2017/18 152 136 136 0.89
2018/19 154 121 121 0.79
2019/20 160 123 122 0.77
2020/21 158 117 115 0.74
2021/22 142 125 125 0.88
2022/23 158 147 145 0.93
2023/24 160 129 126 0.81
2024/25 160 172 147 1.07
2025/26 155 173 147 1.12
2026/27 159 150 133 0.94

Places offered

159

in 2026/27

Named first choice

150

363 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.7%

133 of 150

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 159 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

800

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

760

95% of capacity

Unfilled places

40

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 Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High 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 Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School reported 40 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95% 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 Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 852 places 619 on roll 2010/11 852 places 651 on roll 2011/12 852 places 634 on roll 2012/13 800 places 654 on roll 2013/14 800 places 672 on roll 2014/15 800 places 704 on roll 2015/16 800 places 675 on roll 2016/17 800 places 695 on roll 2017/18 800 places 694 on roll 2018/19 800 places 712 on roll 2020/21 800 places 744 on roll 2021/22 800 places 746 on roll 2022/23 800 places 743 on roll 2023/24 800 places 745 on roll 2024/25 800 places 760 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lancashire

Postcode PR5 6PB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 119784).

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.