School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 188 and 222 put it first.

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

1.18

first choices for every place available

222 first preferences for 188 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough

There is no published appeal success rate for The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough, 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 Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough 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 The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough, 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 1.41 per place 253 first choices 180 places 2016/17 1.18 per place 212 first choices 180 places 2017/18 1.26 per place 225 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.32 per place 253 first choices 192 places 2019/20 1.36 per place 251 first choices 185 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 222 first choices 186 places 2021/22 1.45 per place 269 first choices 186 places 2022/23 1.39 per place 257 first choices 185 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 220 first choices 186 places 2024/25 1.34 per place 250 first choices 186 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 217 first choices 186 places 2026/27 1.18 per place 222 first choices 188 places
First preferences per place at The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 222 first preferences for 188 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 180 253 180 1.41
2016/17 180 212 178 1.18
2017/18 179 225 176 1.26
2018/19 192 253 190 1.32
2019/20 185 251 182 1.36
2020/21 186 222 182 1.19
2021/22 186 269 183 1.45
2022/23 185 257 185 1.39
2023/24 186 220 182 1.18
2024/25 186 250 182 1.34
2025/26 186 217 183 1.17
2026/27 188 222 183 1.18

Places offered

188

in 2026/27

Named first choice

222

270 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

82.4%

183 of 222

Offers to families outside the council

56%

105 of 188 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

916

101.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

16

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

384

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 Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough 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 Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough 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 Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,219 places 1,181 on roll 2010/11 1,217 places 1,169 on roll 2011/12 1,217 places 1,206 on roll 2012/13 1,217 places 1,229 on roll 2013/14 1,217 places 1,215 on roll 2014/15 1,236 places 1,236 on roll 2015/16 1,236 places 1,225 on roll 2016/17 1,236 places 1,224 on roll 2017/18 1,325 places 1,230 on roll 2018/19 1,325 places 1,218 on roll 2020/21 1,284 places 1,208 on roll 2021/22 1,284 places 1,237 on roll 2022/23 1,284 places 1,220 on roll 2023/24 1,284 places 1,165 on roll 2024/25 1,284 places 1,125 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lincolnshire

Postcode DN21 2ST. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 120655).

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.