School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 25 families who named Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 68 and 86 put it first.

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

1.26

first choices for every place available

86 first preferences for 68 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective 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 Lincolnshire 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 Lincolnshire, 40.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 778 of 1,930 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 Lincolnshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Lincolnshire 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

Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy 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 Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective 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 1.25 per place 85 first choices 68 places 2016/17 1.13 per place 71 first choices 63 places 2017/18 1.29 per place 84 first choices 65 places 2018/19 1.33 per place 100 first choices 75 places 2019/20 1.14 per place 96 first choices 84 places 2020/21 1.16 per place 71 first choices 61 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 112 first choices 93 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 91 first choices 78 places 2023/24 1.29 per place 90 first choices 70 places 2024/25 1.19 per place 89 first choices 75 places 2025/26 1.24 per place 105 first choices 85 places 2026/27 1.26 per place 86 first choices 68 places
First preferences per place at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 86 first preferences for 68 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective 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 68 85 67 1.25
2016/17 63 71 62 1.13
2017/18 65 84 64 1.29
2018/19 75 100 73 1.33
2019/20 84 96 80 1.14
2020/21 61 71 58 1.16
2021/22 93 112 85 1.2
2022/23 78 91 70 1.17
2023/24 70 90 65 1.29
2024/25 75 89 62 1.19
2025/26 85 105 80 1.24
2026/27 68 86 61 1.26

Places offered

68

in 2026/27

Named first choice

86

194 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.9%

61 of 86

Offers to families outside the council

12%

8 of 68 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

420

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

434

103.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

14

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

208

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 Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective 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 Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 350 700 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 628 places 571 on roll 2011/12 628 places 568 on roll 2012/13 628 places 567 on roll 2013/14 628 places 567 on roll 2014/15 628 places 575 on roll 2015/16 628 places 560 on roll 2016/17 628 places 543 on roll 2017/18 628 places 546 on roll 2018/19 628 places 573 on roll 2020/21 628 places 538 on roll 2021/22 628 places 539 on roll 2022/23 628 places 531 on roll 2023/24 628 places 528 on roll 2024/25 628 places 530 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lincolnshire

Postcode LN13 9HY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136315).

Other contested secondary schools in Lincolnshire

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.