School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Margaret's Church of England Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 32 families who named St Margaret's Church of England Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 136 put it first and 104 of them were offered one.

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

32

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

136 first preferences for 186 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Margaret's Church of England Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Margaret's Church of England 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

St Margaret's Church of England Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 2 of those years. In the other 10 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 St Margaret's Church of England 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 0.98 per place 157 first choices 160 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 158 first choices 160 places 2017/18 1.19 per place 189 first choices 159 places 2018/19 0.88 per place 141 first choices 160 places 2019/20 1 per place 180 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.06 per place 170 first choices 160 places 2021/22 0.84 per place 135 first choices 160 places 2022/23 0.81 per place 127 first choices 157 places 2023/24 0.6 per place 98 first choices 164 places 2024/25 0.58 per place 104 first choices 180 places 2025/26 0.58 per place 107 first choices 184 places 2026/27 0.73 per place 136 first choices 186 places
First preferences per place at St Margaret's Church of England Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 136 first preferences for 186 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Margaret's Church of England Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 160 157 131 0.98
2016/17 160 158 115 0.99
2017/18 159 189 113 1.19
2018/19 160 141 95 0.88
2019/20 180 180 124 1
2020/21 160 170 95 1.06
2021/22 160 135 86 0.84
2022/23 157 127 92 0.81
2023/24 164 98 75 0.6
2024/25 180 104 86 0.58
2025/26 184 107 83 0.58
2026/27 186 136 104 0.73

Places offered

186

in 2026/27

Named first choice

136

580 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

76.5%

104 of 136

Offers to families outside the council

6%

12 of 186 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

950

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

827

87.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

123

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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 St Margaret's Church of England 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 St Margaret's Church of England Academy reported 123 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87.1% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Margaret's Church of England Academy from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,050 places 977 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 985 on roll 2014/15 1,050 places 993 on roll 2015/16 1,139 places 1,034 on roll 2016/17 1,139 places 1,032 on roll 2017/18 1,139 places 998 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 995 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,050 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,035 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,018 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 993 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 967 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 L17 6AB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138850).

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.