School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy?

In 2026/27, St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy offered 214 places and 199 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.93

first choices for every place available

199 first preferences for 214 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary 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

St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 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 St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary 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 1.15 per place 235 first choices 205 places 2016/17 1.08 per place 218 first choices 202 places 2017/18 1.14 per place 246 first choices 215 places 2018/19 1.11 per place 238 first choices 215 places 2019/20 1.15 per place 249 first choices 216 places 2020/21 1.16 per place 248 first choices 214 places 2021/22 1.08 per place 233 first choices 215 places 2022/23 1.03 per place 220 first choices 213 places 2023/24 0.99 per place 236 first choices 238 places 2024/25 1.02 per place 242 first choices 238 places 2025/26 0.92 per place 190 first choices 207 places 2026/27 0.93 per place 199 first choices 214 places
First preferences per place at St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 199 first preferences for 214 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 205 235 204 1.15
2016/17 202 218 202 1.08
2017/18 215 246 215 1.14
2018/19 215 238 210 1.11
2019/20 216 249 209 1.15
2020/21 214 248 210 1.16
2021/22 215 233 208 1.08
2022/23 213 220 210 1.03
2023/24 238 236 234 0.99
2024/25 238 242 232 1.02
2025/26 207 190 190 0.92
2026/27 214 199 199 0.93

Places offered

214

in 2026/27

Named first choice

199

545 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

199 of 199

Offers to families outside the council

6%

12 of 213 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 119801.

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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,130

94.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

70

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 St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary 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 St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy reported 70 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.2% 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 St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,025 places 1,073 on roll 2010/11 1,025 places 1,086 on roll 2011/12 1,025 places 1,090 on roll 2012/13 1,025 places 1,079 on roll 2013/14 1,025 places 1,059 on roll 2014/15 1,025 places 1,041 on roll 2015/16 1,025 places 1,032 on roll 2016/17 1,025 places 1,023 on roll 2017/18 1,075 places 1,035 on roll 2018/19 1,075 places 1,046 on roll 2020/21 1,075 places 1,085 on roll 2021/22 1,075 places 1,098 on roll 2022/23 1,075 places 1,106 on roll 2023/24 1,075 places 1,123 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 1,130 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 BB7 9JA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149457).

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.