School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Pendle Vale College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 22 families who named Pendle Vale College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 207 and 220 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

220 first preferences for 207 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Pendle Vale College

There is no published appeal success rate for Pendle Vale College, 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

Pendle Vale College 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 Pendle Vale College, 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 0.92 per place 189 first choices 206 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 196 first choices 209 places 2017/18 1.18 per place 240 first choices 203 places 2018/19 1.28 per place 267 first choices 208 places 2019/20 1.49 per place 309 first choices 208 places 2020/21 1.47 per place 308 first choices 209 places 2021/22 1.25 per place 259 first choices 208 places 2022/23 1.37 per place 278 first choices 203 places 2023/24 1.12 per place 232 first choices 207 places 2024/25 1.01 per place 209 first choices 206 places 2025/26 1.11 per place 226 first choices 203 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 220 first choices 207 places
First preferences per place at Pendle Vale College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 220 first preferences for 207 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Pendle Vale College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 206 189 182 0.92
2016/17 209 196 183 0.94
2017/18 203 240 197 1.18
2018/19 208 267 200 1.28
2019/20 208 309 202 1.49
2020/21 209 308 198 1.47
2021/22 208 259 196 1.25
2022/23 203 278 200 1.37
2023/24 207 232 200 1.12
2024/25 206 209 189 1.01
2025/26 203 226 187 1.11
2026/27 207 220 198 1.06

Places offered

207

in 2026/27

Named first choice

220

502 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90%

198 of 220

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 207 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

1,137

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,049

92.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

88

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 Pendle Vale College 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 Pendle Vale College reported 88 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 92.3% 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 Pendle Vale College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,050 places 904 on roll 2010/11 1,260 places 968 on roll 2011/12 1,050 places 972 on roll 2012/13 1,050 places 1,022 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 1,023 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 1,011 on roll 2015/16 1,050 places 1,012 on roll 2016/17 1,050 places 1,029 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 1,040 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 1,049 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,071 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,069 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,063 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,059 on roll 2024/25 1,137 places 1,049 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lancashire

Postcode BB9 8LF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 134989).

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.