School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 77 families who named Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 289 and 353 put it first.

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

1.22

first choices for every place available

353 first preferences for 289 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Ripley St Thomas Church of England 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

Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy turned first-choice families away in 11 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 Ripley St Thomas Church of England 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 1.06 per place 284 first choices 269 places 2016/17 1.1 per place 296 first choices 270 places 2017/18 1 per place 269 first choices 270 places 2018/19 1.24 per place 347 first choices 280 places 2019/20 1.26 per place 354 first choices 280 places 2020/21 1.14 per place 319 first choices 279 places 2021/22 1.31 per place 368 first choices 280 places 2022/23 1.59 per place 415 first choices 261 places 2023/24 1.26 per place 341 first choices 270 places 2024/25 1.34 per place 387 first choices 289 places 2025/26 1.23 per place 350 first choices 284 places 2026/27 1.22 per place 353 first choices 289 places
First preferences per place at Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 353 first preferences for 289 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 269 284 260 1.06
2016/17 270 296 264 1.1
2017/18 270 269 261 1
2018/19 280 347 267 1.24
2019/20 280 354 272 1.26
2020/21 279 319 270 1.14
2021/22 280 368 271 1.31
2022/23 261 415 249 1.59
2023/24 270 341 263 1.26
2024/25 289 387 280 1.34
2025/26 284 350 279 1.23
2026/27 289 353 276 1.22

Places offered

289

in 2026/27

Named first choice

353

917 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.2%

276 of 353

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 289 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

1,280

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,403

109.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

123

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

474

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 Ripley St Thomas Church of England 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 Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,677 places 1,633 on roll 2011/12 1,754 places 1,637 on roll 2012/13 1,754 places 1,665 on roll 2013/14 1,754 places 1,716 on roll 2014/15 1,754 places 1,718 on roll 2015/16 1,754 places 1,709 on roll 2016/17 1,754 places 1,708 on roll 2017/18 1,754 places 1,698 on roll 2018/19 1,754 places 1,719 on roll 2020/21 1,754 places 1,756 on roll 2021/22 1,754 places 1,747 on roll 2022/23 1,754 places 1,679 on roll 2023/24 1,754 places 1,671 on roll 2024/25 1,754 places 1,726 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 LA1 4RS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136731).

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.