School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Michael's Church of England High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 94 families who named St Michael's Church of England High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 219 and 311 put it first.

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

1.42

first choices for every place available

311 first preferences for 219 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Michael's Church of England High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Michael's Church of England High School, 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 Michael's Church of England High School 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 Michael's Church of England High School, 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 1.27 per place 286 first choices 225 places 2016/17 1.09 per place 246 first choices 225 places 2017/18 1.11 per place 253 first choices 228 places 2018/19 1.28 per place 286 first choices 224 places 2019/20 1.32 per place 298 first choices 225 places 2020/21 1.16 per place 262 first choices 226 places 2021/22 1.25 per place 279 first choices 224 places 2022/23 1.38 per place 306 first choices 221 places 2023/24 1.27 per place 280 first choices 221 places 2024/25 1.35 per place 299 first choices 221 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 256 first choices 225 places 2026/27 1.42 per place 311 first choices 219 places
First preferences per place at St Michael's Church of England High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 311 first preferences for 219 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Michael's Church of England High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 225 286 223 1.27
2016/17 225 246 222 1.09
2017/18 228 253 227 1.11
2018/19 224 286 222 1.28
2019/20 225 298 220 1.32
2020/21 226 262 223 1.16
2021/22 224 279 218 1.25
2022/23 221 306 219 1.38
2023/24 221 280 218 1.27
2024/25 221 299 218 1.35
2025/26 225 256 222 1.14
2026/27 219 311 217 1.42

Places offered

219

in 2026/27

Named first choice

311

770 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

69.8%

217 of 311

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 219 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

1,129

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,133

100.4% of capacity

Over its capacity by

4

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 Michael's Church of England High School 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 Michael's Church of England High School 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Michael's Church of England High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,129 places 1,129 on roll 2012/13 1,129 places 1,117 on roll 2013/14 1,129 places 1,110 on roll 2014/15 1,129 places 1,109 on roll 2015/16 1,129 places 1,121 on roll 2016/17 1,129 places 1,120 on roll 2017/18 1,129 places 1,128 on roll 2018/19 1,129 places 1,126 on roll 2020/21 1,129 places 1,130 on roll 2021/22 1,129 places 1,133 on roll 2022/23 1,129 places 1,134 on roll 2023/24 1,129 places 1,134 on roll 2024/25 1,129 places 1,133 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 PR7 1RS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136893).

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.