School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Limehurst Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 21 families who named Limehurst Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 121 and 137 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

137 first preferences for 121 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Limehurst Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Limehurst 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 Leicestershire 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 Leicestershire, 17.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 128 of 715 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 Leicestershire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Leicestershire 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

Limehurst Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 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 Limehurst 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 1.18 per place 142 first choices 120 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 111 first choices 116 places 2017/18 0.94 per place 107 first choices 114 places 2018/19 1.07 per place 126 first choices 118 places 2019/20 1.13 per place 140 first choices 124 places 2020/21 1.46 per place 181 first choices 124 places 2021/22 1.37 per place 164 first choices 120 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 149 first choices 122 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 127 first choices 124 places 2024/25 1.29 per place 164 first choices 127 places 2025/26 1 per place 116 first choices 116 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 137 first choices 121 places
First preferences per place at Limehurst Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 137 first preferences for 121 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Limehurst Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 142 117 1.18
2016/17 116 111 107 0.96
2017/18 114 107 107 0.94
2018/19 118 126 103 1.07
2019/20 124 140 123 1.13
2020/21 124 181 122 1.46
2021/22 120 164 119 1.37
2022/23 122 149 115 1.22
2023/24 124 127 115 1.02
2024/25 127 164 126 1.29
2025/26 116 116 116 1
2026/27 121 137 116 1.13

Places offered

121

in 2026/27

Named first choice

137

361 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.7%

116 of 137

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 121 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

661

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

643

97.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

18

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 Limehurst 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 Limehurst Academy reported 18 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.3% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Limehurst Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 350 700 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 518 places 414 on roll 2012/13 518 places 398 on roll 2013/14 518 places 508 on roll 2014/15 518 places 616 on roll 2015/16 518 places 604 on roll 2016/17 518 places 605 on roll 2017/18 600 places 587 on roll 2018/19 600 places 592 on roll 2020/21 600 places 613 on roll 2021/22 600 places 611 on roll 2022/23 600 places 636 on roll 2023/24 600 places 639 on roll 2024/25 661 places 643 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
Leicestershire

Postcode LE11 1NH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137367).

Other contested secondary schools in Leicestershire

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.