School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Our Lady's RC High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 54 families who named Our Lady's RC High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 202 and 232 put it first.

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

1.15

first choices for every place available

232 first preferences for 202 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Our Lady's RC High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Our Lady's RC 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 Manchester 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 Manchester, 17.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 202 of 1,159 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 Manchester.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Manchester 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

Our Lady's RC High School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 1 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 Our Lady's RC 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 0.64 per place 77 first choices 120 places 2016/17 0.64 per place 91 first choices 142 places 2017/18 0.7 per place 103 first choices 147 places 2018/19 0.78 per place 123 first choices 157 places 2019/20 1.06 per place 166 first choices 157 places 2020/21 1.1 per place 171 first choices 155 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 176 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.02 per place 183 first choices 179 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 202 first choices 169 places 2024/25 1.29 per place 258 first choices 200 places 2025/26 1.28 per place 259 first choices 203 places 2026/27 1.15 per place 232 first choices 202 places
First preferences per place at Our Lady's RC High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 232 first preferences for 202 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Our Lady's RC 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
2015/16 120 77 77 0.64
2016/17 142 91 90 0.64
2017/18 147 103 103 0.7
2018/19 157 123 122 0.78
2019/20 157 166 144 1.06
2020/21 155 171 145 1.1
2021/22 178 176 157 0.99
2022/23 179 183 166 1.02
2023/24 169 202 161 1.2
2024/25 200 258 185 1.29
2025/26 203 259 184 1.28
2026/27 202 232 178 1.15

Places offered

202

in 2026/27

Named first choice

232

570 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

76.7%

178 of 232

Offers to families outside the council

6%

13 of 202 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,054

100.4% of capacity

Over its capacity by

4

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

0

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 Our Lady's RC 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 Our Lady's RC High School 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 Our Lady's RC High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 754 places 740 on roll 2010/11 754 places 726 on roll 2011/12 754 places 704 on roll 2012/13 754 places 682 on roll 2013/14 754 places 681 on roll 2014/15 754 places 709 on roll 2015/16 754 places 743 on roll 2016/17 754 places 774 on roll 2017/18 754 places 803 on roll 2018/19 754 places 824 on roll 2020/21 754 places 879 on roll 2021/22 810 places 905 on roll 2022/23 900 places 974 on roll 2023/24 900 places 1,006 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,054 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Manchester

Postcode M9 0RP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 105576).

Other contested secondary schools in Manchester

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.