School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The King's Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named The King's Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 216 and 220 put it first.

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

1.02

first choices for every place available

220 first preferences for 216 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The King's Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The King's Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Middlesbrough 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 Middlesbrough, 10.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 34 of 318 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 Middlesbrough.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Middlesbrough 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's Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 of those years. In the other 2 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 The King's Academy, 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 1.16 per place 234 first choices 201 places 2016/17 1.19 per place 229 first choices 192 places 2017/18 1.25 per place 242 first choices 194 places 2018/19 1.03 per place 228 first choices 221 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 212 first choices 224 places 2020/21 0.97 per place 223 first choices 229 places 2021/22 1.15 per place 255 first choices 221 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 280 first choices 254 places 2023/24 1.04 per place 257 first choices 247 places 2024/25 1.15 per place 279 first choices 243 places 2025/26 1.07 per place 241 first choices 226 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 220 first choices 216 places
First preferences per place at The King's Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 220 first preferences for 216 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The King's Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 201 234 191 1.16
2016/17 192 229 185 1.19
2017/18 194 242 187 1.25
2018/19 221 228 204 1.03
2019/20 224 212 187 0.95
2020/21 229 223 198 0.97
2021/22 221 255 211 1.15
2022/23 254 280 237 1.1
2023/24 247 257 234 1.04
2024/25 243 279 228 1.15
2025/26 226 241 209 1.07
2026/27 216 220 203 1.02

Places offered

216

in 2026/27

Named first choice

220

661 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.3%

203 of 220

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 216 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

1,280

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,244

97.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

36

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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's Academy 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's Academy reported 36 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.2% 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 The King's Academy 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 1,250 places 1,131 on roll 2010/11 1,250 places 1,136 on roll 2011/12 1,250 places 1,141 on roll 2012/13 1,250 places 1,172 on roll 2013/14 1,250 places 1,143 on roll 2014/15 1,250 places 1,190 on roll 2015/16 1,250 places 1,195 on roll 2016/17 1,250 places 1,179 on roll 2017/18 1,250 places 1,194 on roll 2018/19 1,250 places 1,221 on roll 2020/21 1,250 places 1,282 on roll 2021/22 1,530 places 1,293 on roll 2022/23 1,530 places 1,339 on roll 2023/24 1,530 places 1,387 on roll 2024/25 1,530 places 1,401 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
Middlesbrough

Postcode TS8 0GA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 134223).

Other contested secondary schools in Middlesbrough

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.