School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Priory City of Lincoln Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 21 families who named The Priory City of Lincoln Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 157 put it first and 136 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.

21

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

157 first preferences for 166 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Priory City of Lincoln Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Priory City of Lincoln 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

The Priory City of Lincoln Academy turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 4 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 The Priory City of Lincoln 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 0.92 per place 130 first choices 141 places 2016/17 0.9 per place 127 first choices 141 places 2017/18 1.01 per place 162 first choices 160 places 2018/19 0.94 per place 156 first choices 166 places 2019/20 1.04 per place 174 first choices 167 places 2020/21 1.05 per place 173 first choices 164 places 2021/22 0.93 per place 152 first choices 164 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 152 first choices 144 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 154 first choices 161 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 164 first choices 165 places 2025/26 0.86 per place 143 first choices 166 places 2026/27 0.95 per place 157 first choices 166 places
First preferences per place at The Priory City of Lincoln Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 157 first preferences for 166 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Priory City of Lincoln Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 141 130 130 0.92
2016/17 141 127 127 0.9
2017/18 160 162 149 1.01
2018/19 166 156 152 0.94
2019/20 167 174 157 1.04
2020/21 164 173 148 1.05
2021/22 164 152 135 0.93
2022/23 144 152 126 1.06
2023/24 161 154 132 0.96
2024/25 165 164 140 0.99
2025/26 166 143 133 0.86
2026/27 166 157 136 0.95

Places offered

166

in 2026/27

Named first choice

157

298 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.6%

136 of 157

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 166 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

855

114% of capacity

Over its capacity by

105

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

150

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 The Priory City of Lincoln 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 The Priory City of Lincoln 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 The Priory City of Lincoln Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 922 places 891 on roll 2010/11 900 places 846 on roll 2011/12 900 places 829 on roll 2012/13 900 places 781 on roll 2013/14 900 places 730 on roll 2014/15 900 places 763 on roll 2015/16 900 places 767 on roll 2016/17 900 places 780 on roll 2017/18 900 places 812 on roll 2018/19 900 places 843 on roll 2020/21 900 places 917 on roll 2021/22 900 places 939 on roll 2022/23 900 places 976 on roll 2023/24 900 places 977 on roll 2024/25 900 places 938 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lincolnshire

Postcode LN6 0EP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135564).

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.