School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 13 families who named St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 157 and 169 put it first.

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

1.08

first choices for every place available

169 first preferences for 157 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham

There is no published appeal success rate for St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham, 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 Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham 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 St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham, 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 1.26 per place 205 first choices 163 places 2016/17 1.42 per place 237 first choices 167 places 2017/18 1.14 per place 187 first choices 164 places 2018/19 1.37 per place 224 first choices 163 places 2019/20 1.22 per place 201 first choices 165 places 2020/21 1.26 per place 203 first choices 161 places 2021/22 1.17 per place 190 first choices 162 places 2022/23 1.36 per place 220 first choices 162 places 2023/24 1.22 per place 199 first choices 163 places 2024/25 1.09 per place 180 first choices 165 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 188 first choices 161 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 169 first choices 157 places
First preferences per place at St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 169 first preferences for 157 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 163 205 163 1.26
2016/17 167 237 166 1.42
2017/18 164 187 163 1.14
2018/19 163 224 161 1.37
2019/20 165 201 164 1.22
2020/21 161 203 160 1.26
2021/22 162 190 161 1.17
2022/23 162 220 162 1.36
2023/24 163 199 162 1.22
2024/25 165 180 161 1.09
2025/26 161 188 160 1.17
2026/27 157 169 156 1.08

Places offered

157

in 2026/27

Named first choice

169

448 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.3%

156 of 169

Offers to families outside the council

13%

20 of 157 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

781

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

827

105.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

46

reported as full or beyond

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 Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham 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 Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 663 places 732 on roll 2010/11 775 places 733 on roll 2011/12 775 places 735 on roll 2012/13 825 places 772 on roll 2013/14 825 places 772 on roll 2014/15 781 places 791 on roll 2015/16 781 places 788 on roll 2016/17 781 places 801 on roll 2017/18 781 places 817 on roll 2018/19 781 places 814 on roll 2020/21 781 places 814 on roll 2021/22 781 places 820 on roll 2022/23 781 places 825 on roll 2023/24 781 places 827 on roll 2024/25 781 places 827 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 FY8 4JL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 119788).

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.