School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Belvedere Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 181 families who named The Belvedere Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 188 and 345 put it first.

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

1.84

first choices for every place available

345 first preferences for 188 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Belvedere Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Belvedere 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

The Belvedere Academy 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 Belvedere Academy, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.9 1.8 2.6 3.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.54 per place 305 first choices 120 places 2016/17 2.37 per place 308 first choices 130 places 2017/18 2.42 per place 315 first choices 130 places 2018/19 3.05 per place 390 first choices 128 places 2019/20 2.41 per place 374 first choices 155 places 2020/21 2.23 per place 341 first choices 153 places 2021/22 1.85 per place 286 first choices 155 places 2022/23 1.59 per place 287 first choices 180 places 2023/24 1.93 per place 345 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.92 per place 348 first choices 181 places 2025/26 1.66 per place 289 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.84 per place 345 first choices 188 places
First preferences per place at The Belvedere Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 345 first preferences for 188 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Belvedere Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 305 109 2.54
2016/17 130 308 114 2.37
2017/18 130 315 104 2.42
2018/19 128 390 101 3.05
2019/20 155 374 124 2.41
2020/21 153 341 114 2.23
2021/22 155 286 110 1.85
2022/23 180 287 139 1.59
2023/24 179 345 144 1.93
2024/25 181 348 154 1.92
2025/26 174 289 138 1.66
2026/27 188 345 164 1.84

Places offered

188

in 2026/27

Named first choice

345

829 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

47.5%

164 of 345

Offers to families outside the council

6%

12 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

862

95.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

38

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

291

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 Belvedere 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 Belvedere Academy reported 38 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.8% 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 The Belvedere Academy 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 2009/10 810 places 658 on roll 2010/11 810 places 723 on roll 2011/12 810 places 769 on roll 2012/13 870 places 787 on roll 2013/14 870 places 823 on roll 2014/15 870 places 831 on roll 2015/16 870 places 838 on roll 2016/17 870 places 879 on roll 2017/18 870 places 912 on roll 2018/19 870 places 900 on roll 2020/21 1,008 places 987 on roll 2021/22 1,008 places 995 on roll 2022/23 1,008 places 1,060 on roll 2023/24 1,191 places 1,098 on roll 2024/25 1,191 places 1,123 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 L8 3TF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135174).

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.