School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wright Robinson College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 76 families who named Wright Robinson College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 344 and 398 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

398 first preferences for 344 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wright Robinson College

There is no published appeal success rate for Wright Robinson College, 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

Wright Robinson College turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Wright Robinson College, 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 0.98 per place 352 first choices 358 places 2016/17 0.91 per place 352 first choices 386 places 2017/18 1.53 per place 547 first choices 358 places 2018/19 1.45 per place 521 first choices 359 places 2019/20 1.28 per place 455 first choices 356 places 2020/21 1.44 per place 512 first choices 356 places 2021/22 1.13 per place 403 first choices 358 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 401 first choices 354 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 418 first choices 347 places 2024/25 1.22 per place 437 first choices 357 places 2025/26 1.11 per place 389 first choices 351 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 398 first choices 344 places
First preferences per place at Wright Robinson College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 398 first preferences for 344 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wright Robinson College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 358 352 319 0.98
2016/17 386 352 351 0.91
2017/18 358 547 331 1.53
2018/19 359 521 338 1.45
2019/20 356 455 320 1.28
2020/21 356 512 333 1.44
2021/22 358 403 325 1.13
2022/23 354 401 333 1.13
2023/24 347 418 331 1.2
2024/25 357 437 327 1.22
2025/26 351 389 303 1.11
2026/27 344 398 322 1.16

Places offered

344

in 2026/27

Named first choice

398

869 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

80.9%

322 of 398

Offers to families outside the council

21%

73 of 344 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 105564.

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

2,023

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,796

88.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

227

across Years 7 to 11

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 Wright Robinson College 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 Wright Robinson College reported 227 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 88.8% 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 Wright Robinson College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,050 2,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,750 places 1,742 on roll 2010/11 1,750 places 1,708 on roll 2011/12 1,750 places 1,677 on roll 2012/13 1,750 places 1,608 on roll 2013/14 1,750 places 1,558 on roll 2014/15 1,750 places 1,578 on roll 2015/16 1,750 places 1,636 on roll 2016/17 1,750 places 1,688 on roll 2017/18 1,750 places 1,752 on roll 2018/19 1,750 places 1,799 on roll 2020/21 1,750 places 1,830 on roll 2021/22 1,750 places 1,815 on roll 2022/23 1,750 places 1,817 on roll 2023/24 1,750 places 1,788 on roll 2024/25 2,023 places 1,796 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Manchester

Postcode M18 8RL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146239).

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.