School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Hodgson Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 24 families who named Hodgson Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 212 and 217 put it first.

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

1.02

first choices for every place available

217 first preferences for 212 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Hodgson Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Hodgson 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

Hodgson 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 Hodgson 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 1.21 per place 270 first choices 223 places 2016/17 1.18 per place 261 first choices 222 places 2017/18 1.27 per place 286 first choices 225 places 2018/19 1.38 per place 310 first choices 224 places 2019/20 1.22 per place 270 first choices 222 places 2020/21 1.17 per place 267 first choices 228 places 2021/22 1.17 per place 252 first choices 215 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 254 first choices 218 places 2023/24 1.41 per place 315 first choices 224 places 2024/25 1.19 per place 265 first choices 222 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 226 first choices 218 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 217 first choices 212 places
First preferences per place at Hodgson Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 217 first preferences for 212 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Hodgson Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 223 270 209 1.21
2016/17 222 261 214 1.18
2017/18 225 286 213 1.27
2018/19 224 310 216 1.38
2019/20 222 270 204 1.22
2020/21 228 267 212 1.17
2021/22 215 252 209 1.17
2022/23 218 254 196 1.17
2023/24 224 315 221 1.41
2024/25 222 265 210 1.19
2025/26 218 226 206 1.04
2026/27 212 217 193 1.02

Places offered

212

in 2026/27

Named first choice

217

695 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.9%

193 of 217

Offers to families outside the council

12%

26 of 212 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

1,157

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,121

96.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

36

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 Hodgson 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 Hodgson Academy reported 36 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.9% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Hodgson Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,125 places 1,114 on roll 2011/12 1,125 places 1,107 on roll 2012/13 1,125 places 1,087 on roll 2013/14 1,125 places 1,076 on roll 2014/15 1,125 places 1,091 on roll 2015/16 1,125 places 1,098 on roll 2016/17 1,125 places 1,092 on roll 2017/18 1,125 places 1,120 on roll 2018/19 1,125 places 1,135 on roll 2020/21 1,125 places 1,113 on roll 2021/22 1,125 places 1,115 on roll 2022/23 1,125 places 1,118 on roll 2023/24 1,125 places 1,116 on roll 2024/25 1,157 places 1,121 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lancashire

Postcode FY6 7EU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136717).

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.