School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Paul's Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 40 families who named St Paul's Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 184 and 216 put it first.

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

1.17

first choices for every place available

216 first preferences for 184 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Paul's Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Paul's Catholic 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 Leicester 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 Leicester, 5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 50 of 1,003 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 Leicester.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Leicester 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 Paul's Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy turned first-choice families away in 6 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 Paul's Catholic 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 0.94 per place 178 first choices 189 places 2016/17 1.12 per place 208 first choices 185 places 2017/18 1.02 per place 198 first choices 194 places 2018/19 0.89 per place 212 first choices 239 places 2019/20 1.27 per place 229 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.07 per place 193 first choices 180 places 2021/22 0.93 per place 168 first choices 180 places 2022/23 0.92 per place 166 first choices 180 places 2023/24 0.88 per place 177 first choices 202 places 2024/25 1.08 per place 200 first choices 186 places 2025/26 0.99 per place 182 first choices 184 places 2026/27 1.17 per place 216 first choices 184 places
First preferences per place at St Paul's Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 216 first preferences for 184 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Paul's Catholic 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
2015/16 189 178 175 0.94
2016/17 185 208 177 1.12
2017/18 194 198 171 1.02
2018/19 239 212 205 0.89
2019/20 180 229 164 1.27
2020/21 180 193 170 1.07
2021/22 180 168 154 0.93
2022/23 180 166 156 0.92
2023/24 202 177 177 0.88
2024/25 186 200 172 1.08
2025/26 184 182 165 0.99
2026/27 184 216 176 1.17

Places offered

184

in 2026/27

Named first choice

216

412 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.5%

176 of 216

Offers to families outside the council

23%

43 of 184 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 120307.

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

890

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

936

105.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

46

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

240

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 Paul's Catholic 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 Paul's Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy 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 Paul's Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,049 places 1,036 on roll 2010/11 1,049 places 1,042 on roll 2011/12 1,049 places 1,026 on roll 2012/13 1,049 places 1,051 on roll 2013/14 1,049 places 1,049 on roll 2014/15 1,049 places 1,073 on roll 2015/16 1,049 places 1,070 on roll 2016/17 1,049 places 1,090 on roll 2017/18 1,039 places 1,084 on roll 2018/19 1,224 places 1,143 on roll 2020/21 1,130 places 1,145 on roll 2021/22 1,130 places 1,147 on roll 2022/23 1,130 places 1,134 on roll 2023/24 1,130 places 1,096 on roll 2024/25 1,130 places 1,140 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
Leicester

Postcode LE5 6HN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146232).

Other contested secondary schools in Leicester

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.