School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at William Hulme's Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 172 families who named William Hulme's Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 167 and 313 put it first.

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

1.87

first choices for every place available

313 first preferences for 167 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at William Hulme's Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for William Hulme's Grammar 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

William Hulme's Grammar 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 William Hulme's Grammar School, 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 3.23 per place 475 first choices 147 places 2016/17 3.49 per place 513 first choices 147 places 2017/18 3.01 per place 524 first choices 174 places 2018/19 2.45 per place 434 first choices 177 places 2019/20 2.19 per place 374 first choices 171 places 2020/21 2.17 per place 384 first choices 177 places 2021/22 2 per place 356 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.83 per place 322 first choices 176 places 2023/24 2.15 per place 376 first choices 175 places 2024/25 1.89 per place 324 first choices 171 places 2025/26 1.76 per place 304 first choices 173 places 2026/27 1.87 per place 313 first choices 167 places
First preferences per place at William Hulme's Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 313 first preferences for 167 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at William Hulme's Grammar School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 147 475 123 3.23
2016/17 147 513 123 3.49
2017/18 174 524 156 3.01
2018/19 177 434 149 2.45
2019/20 171 374 145 2.19
2020/21 177 384 153 2.17
2021/22 178 356 143 2
2022/23 176 322 149 1.83
2023/24 175 376 147 2.15
2024/25 171 324 142 1.89
2025/26 173 304 140 1.76
2026/27 167 313 141 1.87

Places offered

167

in 2026/27

Named first choice

313

979 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

45%

141 of 313

Offers to families outside the council

4%

6 of 167 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

1,320

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,335

101.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

15

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

200

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 William Hulme's Grammar 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 William Hulme's Grammar 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 William Hulme's Grammar School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,040 places 864 on roll 2010/11 1,040 places 932 on roll 2011/12 895 places 947 on roll 2012/13 895 places 970 on roll 2013/14 1,015 places 961 on roll 2014/15 1,015 places 1,021 on roll 2015/16 1,270 places 1,107 on roll 2016/17 1,270 places 1,241 on roll 2017/18 1,520 places 1,330 on roll 2018/19 1,520 places 1,352 on roll 2020/21 1,520 places 1,467 on roll 2021/22 1,520 places 1,526 on roll 2022/23 1,520 places 1,547 on roll 2023/24 1,520 places 1,562 on roll 2024/25 1,520 places 1,542 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Manchester

Postcode M16 8PR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135296).

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.