School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The King David High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 13 families who named The King David High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 87 and 94 put it first.

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

1.08

first choices for every place available

94 first preferences for 87 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The King David High School

There is no published appeal success rate for The King David 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

The King David 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 The King David 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 1.03 per place 111 first choices 108 places 2016/17 1.09 per place 105 first choices 96 places 2017/18 1.15 per place 142 first choices 123 places 2018/19 1.1 per place 122 first choices 111 places 2019/20 1.18 per place 127 first choices 108 places 2020/21 1.06 per place 107 first choices 101 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 109 first choices 91 places 2022/23 1.14 per place 107 first choices 94 places 2023/24 1.12 per place 95 first choices 85 places 2024/25 1.01 per place 113 first choices 112 places 2025/26 1.09 per place 117 first choices 107 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 94 first choices 87 places
First preferences per place at The King David High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 94 first preferences for 87 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The King David 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
2015/16 108 111 103 1.03
2016/17 96 105 92 1.09
2017/18 123 142 122 1.15
2018/19 111 122 104 1.1
2019/20 108 127 105 1.18
2020/21 101 107 96 1.06
2021/22 91 109 84 1.2
2022/23 94 107 92 1.14
2023/24 85 95 83 1.12
2024/25 112 113 105 1.01
2025/26 107 117 105 1.09
2026/27 87 94 81 1.08

Places offered

87

in 2026/27

Named first choice

94

204 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.2%

81 of 94

Offers to families outside the council

85%

74 of 87 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

978

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

598

61.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

380

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

225

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 King David 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 The King David High School reported 380 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 61.1% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The King David High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 775 places 828 on roll 2012/13 800 places 792 on roll 2013/14 800 places 818 on roll 2014/15 800 places 802 on roll 2015/16 800 places 821 on roll 2016/17 800 places 795 on roll 2017/18 800 places 805 on roll 2018/19 800 places 779 on roll 2020/21 800 places 780 on roll 2021/22 800 places 809 on roll 2022/23 800 places 785 on roll 2023/24 800 places 774 on roll 2024/25 1,203 places 781 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
Manchester

Postcode M8 5DY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137309).

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.