School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 6 families who named Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn as their first choice did not get a place: 159 put it first and 153 of them were offered one.

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

6

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

159 first preferences for 185 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn

There is no published appeal success rate for Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn, 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 William Robertson Academy, Welbourn turned first-choice families away in 3 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 Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn, 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 0.79 per place 95 first choices 121 places 2016/17 0.81 per place 108 first choices 133 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 182 first choices 207 places 2018/19 0.89 per place 135 first choices 151 places 2019/20 0.77 per place 133 first choices 172 places 2020/21 0.87 per place 159 first choices 182 places 2021/22 0.79 per place 119 first choices 151 places 2022/23 0.93 per place 213 first choices 229 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 193 first choices 157 places 2024/25 1.28 per place 194 first choices 152 places 2025/26 1.2 per place 194 first choices 162 places 2026/27 0.86 per place 159 first choices 185 places
First preferences per place at Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 159 first preferences for 185 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 121 95 95 0.79
2016/17 133 108 108 0.81
2017/18 207 182 182 0.88
2018/19 151 135 135 0.89
2019/20 172 133 133 0.77
2020/21 182 159 159 0.87
2021/22 151 119 119 0.79
2022/23 229 213 208 0.93
2023/24 157 193 140 1.23
2024/25 152 194 141 1.28
2025/26 162 194 154 1.2
2026/27 185 159 153 0.86

Places offered

185

in 2026/27

Named first choice

159

482 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

96.2%

153 of 159

Offers to families outside the council

12%

23 of 185 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

710

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

903

127.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

193

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

128

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 William Robertson Academy, Welbourn 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 William Robertson Academy, Welbourn 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 838 places 834 on roll 2013/14 838 places 798 on roll 2014/15 838 places 739 on roll 2015/16 838 places 728 on roll 2016/17 838 places 777 on roll 2017/18 838 places 828 on roll 2018/19 838 places 827 on roll 2020/21 873 places 946 on roll 2021/22 873 places 987 on roll 2022/23 873 places 1,051 on roll 2023/24 838 places 1,017 on roll 2024/25 838 places 985 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 LN5 0PA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138839).

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.