School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Archbishop Blanch CofE High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 108 families who named Archbishop Blanch CofE High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 185 and 258 put it first.

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

1.39

first choices for every place available

258 first preferences for 185 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Archbishop Blanch CofE High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Archbishop Blanch CofE High School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Liverpool 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 Liverpool, 8.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 185 of 2,150 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 Liverpool.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Liverpool 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

Archbishop Blanch CofE High School 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 Archbishop Blanch CofE High School, 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 1.16 per place 164 first choices 141 places 2016/17 1.3 per place 181 first choices 139 places 2017/18 1.44 per place 200 first choices 139 places 2018/19 1.14 per place 171 first choices 150 places 2019/20 1.01 per place 179 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.26 per place 226 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.3 per place 237 first choices 182 places 2022/23 1.21 per place 218 first choices 180 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 222 first choices 188 places 2024/25 1.2 per place 230 first choices 191 places 2025/26 1.35 per place 253 first choices 188 places 2026/27 1.39 per place 258 first choices 185 places
First preferences per place at Archbishop Blanch CofE High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 258 first preferences for 185 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Archbishop Blanch CofE High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 141 164 105 1.16
2016/17 139 181 97 1.3
2017/18 139 200 94 1.44
2018/19 150 171 85 1.14
2019/20 178 179 114 1.01
2020/21 180 226 128 1.26
2021/22 182 237 136 1.3
2022/23 180 218 128 1.21
2023/24 188 222 141 1.18
2024/25 191 230 143 1.2
2025/26 188 253 166 1.35
2026/27 185 258 150 1.39

Places offered

185

in 2026/27

Named first choice

258

790 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

58.1%

150 of 258

Offers to families outside the council

8%

14 of 185 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 104705.

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

950

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

926

97.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

24

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

165

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 Archbishop Blanch CofE High School 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 Archbishop Blanch CofE High School reported 24 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.5% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Archbishop Blanch CofE High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,065 places 904 on roll 2010/11 1,065 places 933 on roll 2011/12 1,065 places 926 on roll 2012/13 1,065 places 942 on roll 2013/14 1,065 places 917 on roll 2014/15 1,065 places 931 on roll 2015/16 931 places 935 on roll 2016/17 931 places 871 on roll 2017/18 931 places 842 on roll 2018/19 931 places 836 on roll 2020/21 931 places 978 on roll 2021/22 1,030 places 1,030 on roll 2022/23 1,030 places 1,081 on roll 2023/24 1,115 places 1,128 on roll 2024/25 1,115 places 1,142 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Liverpool

Postcode L7 6HQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 152034).

Other contested secondary schools in Liverpool

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.