School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sir Robert Pattinson Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 49 families who named Sir Robert Pattinson Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 241 and 272 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

272 first preferences for 241 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sir Robert Pattinson Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Sir Robert Pattinson 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

Sir Robert Pattinson Academy turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 3 of those years. In the other 2 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 Sir Robert Pattinson 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 0.86 per place 142 first choices 166 places 2016/17 0.84 per place 158 first choices 187 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 215 first choices 245 places 2018/19 0.87 per place 219 first choices 252 places 2019/20 0.85 per place 204 first choices 241 places 2020/21 0.96 per place 240 first choices 250 places 2021/22 0.98 per place 244 first choices 248 places 2022/23 0.95 per place 236 first choices 249 places 2023/24 0.89 per place 220 first choices 247 places 2024/25 1.14 per place 309 first choices 270 places 2025/26 1.05 per place 281 first choices 268 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 272 first choices 241 places
First preferences per place at Sir Robert Pattinson Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 272 first preferences for 241 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sir Robert Pattinson Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 166 142 142 0.86
2016/17 187 158 158 0.84
2017/18 245 215 215 0.88
2018/19 252 219 218 0.87
2019/20 241 204 204 0.85
2020/21 250 240 215 0.96
2021/22 248 244 213 0.98
2022/23 249 236 226 0.95
2023/24 247 220 202 0.89
2024/25 270 309 241 1.14
2025/26 268 281 250 1.05
2026/27 241 272 223 1.13

Places offered

241

in 2026/27

Named first choice

272

539 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

82%

223 of 272

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 241 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

1,260

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,188

94.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

72

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

164

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 Sir Robert Pattinson 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 Sir Robert Pattinson Academy reported 72 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.3% 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 Sir Robert Pattinson Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,409 places 1,273 on roll 2012/13 1,409 places 1,282 on roll 2013/14 1,409 places 1,226 on roll 2014/15 1,409 places 1,201 on roll 2015/16 1,409 places 1,139 on roll 2016/17 1,409 places 1,117 on roll 2017/18 1,409 places 1,140 on roll 2018/19 1,510 places 1,182 on roll 2020/21 1,510 places 1,232 on roll 2021/22 1,510 places 1,274 on roll 2022/23 1,510 places 1,290 on roll 2023/24 1,424 places 1,303 on roll 2024/25 1,424 places 1,301 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
Lincolnshire

Postcode LN6 9AF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137135).

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.