School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Up Holland High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named Up Holland High School as their first choice did not get a place: 174 put it first and 157 of them were offered one.

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

17

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

174 first preferences for 192 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Up Holland High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Up Holland 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

Up Holland High School turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Up Holland 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 0.95 per place 92 first choices 97 places 2016/17 0.86 per place 148 first choices 172 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 136 first choices 154 places 2018/19 0.79 per place 142 first choices 179 places 2019/20 0.8 per place 138 first choices 172 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 211 first choices 178 places 2021/22 1.06 per place 188 first choices 177 places 2022/23 0.88 per place 155 first choices 176 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 192 first choices 179 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 175 first choices 179 places 2025/26 1.13 per place 199 first choices 176 places 2026/27 0.91 per place 174 first choices 192 places
First preferences per place at Up Holland High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 174 first preferences for 192 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Up Holland 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 97 92 92 0.95
2016/17 172 148 139 0.86
2017/18 154 136 135 0.88
2018/19 179 142 142 0.79
2019/20 172 138 128 0.8
2020/21 178 211 171 1.19
2021/22 177 188 171 1.06
2022/23 176 155 155 0.88
2023/24 179 192 161 1.07
2024/25 179 175 153 0.98
2025/26 176 199 156 1.13
2026/27 192 174 157 0.91

Places offered

192

in 2026/27

Named first choice

174

476 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.2%

157 of 174

Offers to families outside the council

39%

74 of 192 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 119751.

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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

857

95.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

43

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 Up Holland 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 Up Holland High School reported 43 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.2% 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 Up Holland High School 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 2009/10 955 places 865 on roll 2010/11 900 places 845 on roll 2011/12 1,157 places 766 on roll 2012/13 900 places 729 on roll 2013/14 900 places 678 on roll 2014/15 900 places 638 on roll 2015/16 900 places 631 on roll 2016/17 900 places 704 on roll 2017/18 900 places 734 on roll 2018/19 900 places 742 on roll 2020/21 900 places 828 on roll 2021/22 900 places 825 on roll 2022/23 900 places 845 on roll 2023/24 900 places 850 on roll 2024/25 900 places 857 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lancashire

Postcode WN5 7AL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149983).

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.