School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Trinity CofE High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 101 families who named Trinity CofE High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 228 and 288 put it first.

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

1.26

first choices for every place available

288 first preferences for 228 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Trinity CofE High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Trinity CofE 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

Trinity CofE 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 Trinity CofE 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 1.75 per place 411 first choices 235 places 2016/17 1.65 per place 391 first choices 237 places 2017/18 1.6 per place 366 first choices 229 places 2018/19 1.45 per place 340 first choices 234 places 2019/20 1.69 per place 391 first choices 232 places 2020/21 1.79 per place 410 first choices 229 places 2021/22 1.46 per place 344 first choices 235 places 2022/23 1.45 per place 330 first choices 227 places 2023/24 1.72 per place 391 first choices 227 places 2024/25 1.85 per place 411 first choices 222 places 2025/26 1.37 per place 313 first choices 229 places 2026/27 1.26 per place 288 first choices 228 places
First preferences per place at Trinity CofE High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 288 first preferences for 228 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Trinity CofE 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
2015/16 235 411 202 1.75
2016/17 237 391 192 1.65
2017/18 229 366 186 1.6
2018/19 234 340 185 1.45
2019/20 232 391 194 1.69
2020/21 229 410 204 1.79
2021/22 235 344 190 1.46
2022/23 227 330 190 1.45
2023/24 227 391 209 1.72
2024/25 222 411 204 1.85
2025/26 229 313 190 1.37
2026/27 228 288 187 1.26

Places offered

228

in 2026/27

Named first choice

288

929 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

64.9%

187 of 288

Offers to families outside the council

18%

41 of 228 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

1,289

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,251

97.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

38

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Trinity CofE 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 Trinity CofE High School reported 38 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.1% 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 Trinity CofE High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,200 places 1,189 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,187 on roll 2013/14 1,200 places 1,196 on roll 2014/15 1,200 places 1,211 on roll 2015/16 1,200 places 1,226 on roll 2016/17 1,200 places 1,271 on roll 2017/18 1,500 places 1,351 on roll 2018/19 1,500 places 1,379 on roll 2020/21 1,500 places 1,476 on roll 2021/22 1,500 places 1,517 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,507 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,513 on roll 2024/25 1,589 places 1,501 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 M15 6HP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137801).

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.