School admission appeals in Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne heard 160 school admission appeals in 2026, and 80 of them were upheld. The figures below come from the Department for Education and cover every state-funded school in the authority — they describe Newcastle upon Tyne as a whole, not any single school.
Over the last three years the Newcastle upon Tyne success rate has run 10.6 percentage points higher than the England average of 19.4%.
of appeals heard in Newcastle upon Tyne were upheld
172 of 573 appeals heard in 2024–2026
2026 at a glance
Appeals lodged
192
by parents in Newcastle upon Tyne
Appeals heard by a panel
160
83% of those lodged
Appeals upheld
80
50% of those heard
England, same year
18.5%
6,414 of 34,711 heard
If your child is going into Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, read this first
47.3% of the primary appeals heard in Newcastle upon Tyne were infant class size appeals. These are a different kind of appeal with a much narrower test. A panel can only uphold one if the admission arrangements were unlawful, they were applied incorrectly, or the decision to refuse was one no reasonable authority would have made. How much your child wants the place, or how strong the school is, cannot come into it.
In Newcastle upon Tyne, 11.4% of infant class size appeals were upheld (5 of 44 appeals heard in 2024–2026) against 9.4% across England. That is far lower than other appeals, and it is the single most important thing to establish before you spend time on a case.
The three grounds one can be upheld on, and how to tell if yours is even an infant class size case →
What counts as grounds in Newcastle upon Tyne
The rules are national, so this part does not vary by council: a panel works through two fixed stages, and the Newcastle upon Tyne rate above tells you nothing about which arguments it can act on. Most appeals fail because the case put to the panel answers neither stage.
- Infant class size
- A mistake in how the decision was made
- Distance and catchment
- Siblings
- Faith and religious criteria
- Medical and social need
- Special educational needs without an EHC plan
- A late application
- In-year admissions
- Grammar schools and the 11-plus
- Sixth form places
- Twins and multiple births
Which appeals succeed in Newcastle upon Tyne
Secondary and primary appeals are judged on different tests, and the gap between them is usually wide. Pooling three years gives a steadier picture than any single year.
Vertical marker shows the England figure for the same phase.
View as a table
| Phase | Heard | Upheld | Rate | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary | 480 | 154 | 32.1% | 20.1% |
| Primary | 93 | 18 | 19.4% | 17.1% |
| Infant class size | 44 | 5 | 11.4% | 9.4% |
Infant class size appeals are counted within the primary figures, not added to them.
Appeals in Newcastle upon Tyne, 2016–2026
View as a table
| Year | Heard | Upheld | Newcastle upon Tyne | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 124 | 17 | 13.7% | 22.3% |
| 2017 | 130 | 40 | 30.8% | 21.8% |
| 2018 | 155 | 40 | 25.8% | 21.8% |
| 2019 | 207 | 23 | 11.1% | 22.2% |
| 2020 | 232 | 89 | 38.4% | 21.2% |
| 2021 | 228 | 28 | 12.3% | 19% |
| 2022 | 150 | 20 | 13.3% | 20.1% |
| 2023 | 136 | 26 | 19.1% | 19.8% |
| 2024 | 171 | 28 | 16.4% | 20% |
| 2025 | 242 | 64 | 26.4% | 19.4% |
| 2026 | 160 | 80 | 50% | 18.5% |
How Newcastle upon Tyne compares
Success rate ranking
19 of 151
English councils, ranked on the pooled 3-year success rate, LAs with 10+ appeals heard. Position 1 is the highest rate.
Appeal volume ranking
69 of 151
by number of appeals heard over the same period — 573 in total.
Success rates vary enormously between councils, from under 5% to over 50%. Some of that is real difference in how panels and admission authorities operate; some of it reflects which schools are oversubscribed and how many hopeless cases get lodged. A high local rate is not a prediction about your appeal.
Schools in Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne has 89 state-funded mainstream schools — 72 primary, 16 secondary and 1 all-through. The largest concentrations are in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle upon Tyne.
What we can't tell you
Nobody publishes appeal outcomes school by school — the Department for Education collects returns from individual schools but only releases them added up to council level. Any site claiming to know your school's appeal odds is guessing. What matters far more than a local average is whether your particular grounds are ones a panel is allowed to act on.
Where places are hardest to get
What is published, school by school, is how many families applied and how many got in. These are the Newcastle upon Tyne schools with the most first choices for each place available in 2026/27 — the places where refusals, and so appeals, are concentrated. High demand does not mean an appeal is more likely to succeed; it means more families are refused.
See all 6 secondary and 28 primary schools in Newcastle upon Tyne →
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Mary's Catholic School | 225 | 414 | 1.84 |
| Sacred Heart Catholic High School | 225 | 322 | 1.43 |
| Walker Riverside Academy | 219 | 276 | 1.26 |
| Jesmond Park Academy | 330 | 378 | 1.15 |
| Callerton Academy | 240 | 233 | 0.97 |
| St Cuthbert's High School | 220 | 210 | 0.95 |
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sacred Heart Primary School | 30 | 60 | 2 |
| St Vincents Catholic Primary School, Newcastle | 30 | 44 | 1.47 |
| Gosforth Park First School | 60 | 79 | 1.32 |
| Archibald First School | 60 | 77 | 1.28 |
| West Jesmond Primary School | 90 | 114 | 1.27 |
| St Charles' Catholic Primary School | 29 | 36 | 1.24 |
| Farne Primary School | 30 | 37 | 1.23 |
| Broadwood Primary School | 30 | 34 | 1.13 |
| English Martyrs' Catholic Primary School, Fenham | 60 | 68 | 1.13 |
| St Teresa's Catholic Primary School, Heaton | 30 | 34 | 1.13 |
Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27.
Admission rules challenged in Newcastle upon Tyne
Separately from appeals, anyone can object that a school's admission arrangements break the School Admissions Code. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator decides those objections and publishes a determination naming the school. Since 2011 it has reached a decision on 13 objections about schools in Newcastle upon Tyne, and found the arrangements did not comply in 10.
| School or authority | Determined | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Great Park Academy | 15 September 2025 | Did not comply |
| Jesmond Park Academy | 20 September 2024 | Did not comply |
| Gosforth Academy | 18 September 2024 | Did not comply |
| Great Park Academy | 17 September 2024 | Did not comply |
| Gosforth Junior High Academy | 16 August 2024 | Did not comply |
| Gosforth East Middle School | 30 August 2019 | Complied |
| Archibald First School | 29 June 2018 | Complied |
| Gosforth East Middle School | 7 December 2017 | Did not comply |
| St Cuthbert's Catholic High School | 12 September 2017 | Complied |
| Sacred Heart Catholic High School | 21 August 2017 | Did not comply |
Newcastle upon Tyne does not write the admission arrangements for every school in the table. Academies, foundation and voluntary aided schools are their own admission authority, so a finding against one of them is a finding about that school's governing body or trust, not about the council. An upheld objection also requires the arrangements to be revised, so an older determination describes rules that have since had to change.
How often admission rules are found not to comply, nationally →
Office of the Schools Adjudicator, published determinations, 2011–2026.