School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Cuthbert's High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named St Cuthbert's High School as their first choice did not get a place: 210 put it first and 171 of them were offered one.

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

39

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

210 first preferences for 220 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Cuthbert's High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Cuthbert's 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 Newcastle upon Tyne 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 Newcastle upon Tyne, 32.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 154 of 480 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 Newcastle upon Tyne.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Newcastle upon Tyne 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

St Cuthbert's High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 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 St Cuthbert's 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 1.47 per place 276 first choices 188 places 2016/17 1.26 per place 249 first choices 197 places 2017/18 1.26 per place 250 first choices 199 places 2018/19 1.48 per place 295 first choices 200 places 2019/20 1.71 per place 337 first choices 197 places 2020/21 1.4 per place 320 first choices 228 places 2021/22 1.5 per place 295 first choices 197 places 2022/23 1.26 per place 277 first choices 220 places 2023/24 1.04 per place 229 first choices 220 places 2024/25 1.13 per place 248 first choices 219 places 2025/26 1.09 per place 238 first choices 219 places 2026/27 0.95 per place 210 first choices 220 places
First preferences per place at St Cuthbert's High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 210 first preferences for 220 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Cuthbert's 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
2015/16 188 276 187 1.47
2016/17 197 249 196 1.26
2017/18 199 250 193 1.26
2018/19 200 295 197 1.48
2019/20 197 337 187 1.71
2020/21 228 320 216 1.4
2021/22 197 295 189 1.5
2022/23 220 277 196 1.26
2023/24 220 229 191 1.04
2024/25 219 248 196 1.13
2025/26 219 238 190 1.09
2026/27 220 210 171 0.95

Places offered

220

in 2026/27

Named first choice

210

467 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.4%

171 of 210

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 220 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

1,000

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,046

104.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

46

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 St Cuthbert's 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 St Cuthbert's High 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Cuthbert's High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,178 places 1,098 on roll 2012/13 1,178 places 1,092 on roll 2013/14 1,178 places 1,099 on roll 2014/15 1,178 places 1,075 on roll 2015/16 1,178 places 1,072 on roll 2016/17 1,178 places 1,111 on roll 2017/18 1,178 places 1,105 on roll 2018/19 1,180 places 1,145 on roll 2020/21 1,200 places 1,203 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 1,204 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 1,230 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,220 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 1,206 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
Newcastle upon Tyne

Postcode NE15 7PX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137900).

Other contested secondary schools in Newcastle upon Tyne

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.