School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Whitworth Community High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 41 families who named Whitworth Community High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 125 and 165 put it first.

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

1.32

first choices for every place available

165 first preferences for 125 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Whitworth Community High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Whitworth Community 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

Whitworth Community High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 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 Whitworth Community 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 0.98 per place 114 first choices 116 places 2016/17 1.4 per place 173 first choices 124 places 2017/18 1.36 per place 177 first choices 130 places 2018/19 1.16 per place 150 first choices 129 places 2019/20 1.27 per place 165 first choices 130 places 2020/21 1.2 per place 153 first choices 128 places 2021/22 1.37 per place 177 first choices 129 places 2022/23 1.29 per place 161 first choices 125 places 2023/24 1.26 per place 163 first choices 129 places 2024/25 1.32 per place 171 first choices 130 places 2025/26 1.47 per place 190 first choices 129 places 2026/27 1.32 per place 165 first choices 125 places
First preferences per place at Whitworth Community High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 165 first preferences for 125 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Whitworth Community 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
2015/16 116 114 101 0.98
2016/17 124 173 117 1.4
2017/18 130 177 123 1.36
2018/19 129 150 121 1.16
2019/20 130 165 124 1.27
2020/21 128 153 118 1.2
2021/22 129 177 120 1.37
2022/23 125 161 121 1.29
2023/24 129 163 129 1.26
2024/25 130 171 128 1.32
2025/26 129 190 128 1.47
2026/27 125 165 124 1.32

Places offered

125

in 2026/27

Named first choice

165

284 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

75.2%

124 of 165

Offers to families outside the council

24%

30 of 125 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

701

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

649

92.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

52

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 Whitworth Community 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 Whitworth Community High School reported 52 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 92.6% 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 Whitworth Community High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 709 places 543 on roll 2010/11 709 places 533 on roll 2011/12 625 places 507 on roll 2012/13 625 places 491 on roll 2013/14 625 places 509 on roll 2014/15 625 places 521 on roll 2015/16 596 places 568 on roll 2016/17 650 places 595 on roll 2017/18 650 places 623 on roll 2018/19 650 places 632 on roll 2020/21 650 places 641 on roll 2021/22 650 places 645 on roll 2022/23 650 places 654 on roll 2023/24 650 places 649 on roll 2024/25 701 places 649 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lancashire

Postcode OL12 8TS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 119753).

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.