School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at North Liverpool Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 211 families who named North Liverpool Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 219 and 410 put it first.

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

1.87

first choices for every place available

410 first preferences for 219 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at North Liverpool Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for North Liverpool 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 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

North Liverpool Academy turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 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 North Liverpool 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 0.88 per place 182 first choices 208 places 2016/17 0.68 per place 139 first choices 205 places 2017/18 0.64 per place 131 first choices 205 places 2018/19 0.62 per place 151 first choices 243 places 2019/20 0.76 per place 173 first choices 229 places 2020/21 0.9 per place 208 first choices 230 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 210 first choices 229 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 280 first choices 229 places 2023/24 1.35 per place 319 first choices 236 places 2024/25 1.62 per place 371 first choices 229 places 2025/26 1.8 per place 396 first choices 220 places 2026/27 1.87 per place 410 first choices 219 places
First preferences per place at North Liverpool Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 410 first preferences for 219 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at North Liverpool Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 208 182 182 0.88
2016/17 205 139 139 0.68
2017/18 205 131 131 0.64
2018/19 243 151 151 0.62
2019/20 229 173 173 0.76
2020/21 230 208 187 0.9
2021/22 229 210 179 0.92
2022/23 229 280 202 1.22
2023/24 236 319 210 1.35
2024/25 229 371 208 1.62
2025/26 220 396 199 1.8
2026/27 219 410 199 1.87

Places offered

219

in 2026/27

Named first choice

410

795 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

48.5%

199 of 410

Offers to families outside the council

1%

3 of 219 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

1,270

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,136

89.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

134

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

400

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 North Liverpool 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 North Liverpool Academy reported 134 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.4% 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 North Liverpool Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,050 2,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,750 places 1,229 on roll 2010/11 1,750 places 1,311 on roll 2011/12 2,050 places 1,376 on roll 2012/13 1,750 places 1,476 on roll 2013/14 1,750 places 1,481 on roll 2014/15 1,750 places 1,483 on roll 2015/16 1,750 places 1,347 on roll 2016/17 1,750 places 1,277 on roll 2017/18 1,750 places 1,286 on roll 2018/19 1,750 places 1,337 on roll 2020/21 1,670 places 1,355 on roll 2021/22 1,670 places 1,370 on roll 2022/23 1,670 places 1,330 on roll 2023/24 1,670 places 1,292 on roll 2024/25 1,670 places 1,283 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
Liverpool

Postcode L5 0SQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 131065).

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.