School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Corpus Christi Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 133 families who named Corpus Christi Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 151 and 278 put it first.

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

1.84

first choices for every place available

278 first preferences for 151 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Corpus Christi Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Corpus Christi 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

Corpus Christi Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 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 Corpus Christi 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 0.86 per place 104 first choices 121 places 2016/17 0.81 per place 91 first choices 112 places 2017/18 0.79 per place 82 first choices 104 places 2018/19 0.61 per place 95 first choices 155 places 2019/20 0.47 per place 74 first choices 156 places 2020/21 0.53 per place 84 first choices 158 places 2021/22 0.48 per place 76 first choices 159 places 2022/23 0.92 per place 148 first choices 161 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 164 first choices 160 places 2024/25 1.57 per place 246 first choices 157 places 2025/26 1.88 per place 291 first choices 155 places 2026/27 1.84 per place 278 first choices 151 places
First preferences per place at Corpus Christi Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 278 first preferences for 151 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Corpus Christi 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
2015/16 121 104 104 0.86
2016/17 112 91 90 0.81
2017/18 104 82 82 0.79
2018/19 155 95 95 0.61
2019/20 156 74 71 0.47
2020/21 158 84 84 0.53
2021/22 159 76 74 0.48
2022/23 161 148 115 0.92
2023/24 160 164 127 1.02
2024/25 157 246 139 1.57
2025/26 155 291 146 1.88
2026/27 151 278 145 1.84

Places offered

151

in 2026/27

Named first choice

278

880 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

52.2%

145 of 278

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 151 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

1,043

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

804

77.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

239

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 Corpus Christi 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 Corpus Christi Catholic High School reported 239 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 77.1% 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 Corpus Christi Catholic High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 850 places 770 on roll 2010/11 850 places 744 on roll 2011/12 850 places 755 on roll 2012/13 1,008 places 769 on roll 2013/14 1,009 places 707 on roll 2014/15 1,009 places 684 on roll 2015/16 1,009 places 658 on roll 2016/17 1,009 places 636 on roll 2017/18 1,009 places 577 on roll 2018/19 972 places 588 on roll 2020/21 1,009 places 718 on roll 2021/22 1,009 places 741 on roll 2022/23 1,009 places 792 on roll 2023/24 1,043 places 805 on roll 2024/25 1,043 places 804 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 PR2 8QY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 119780).

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.