School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Mary's Catholic School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 193 families who named St Mary's Catholic School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 225 and 414 put it first.

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

1.84

first choices for every place available

414 first preferences for 225 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Mary's Catholic School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Mary's Catholic 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 Mary's Catholic 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 St Mary's Catholic 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 1.25 per place 293 first choices 235 places 2016/17 1.36 per place 303 first choices 222 places 2017/18 1.43 per place 317 first choices 222 places 2018/19 1.64 per place 355 first choices 217 places 2019/20 1.9 per place 427 first choices 225 places 2020/21 1.71 per place 408 first choices 239 places 2021/22 1.66 per place 394 first choices 238 places 2022/23 1.69 per place 401 first choices 237 places 2023/24 1.81 per place 409 first choices 226 places 2024/25 1.75 per place 405 first choices 231 places 2025/26 1.8 per place 406 first choices 225 places 2026/27 1.84 per place 414 first choices 225 places
First preferences per place at St Mary's Catholic School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 414 first preferences for 225 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Mary's Catholic School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 235 293 227 1.25
2016/17 222 303 217 1.36
2017/18 222 317 217 1.43
2018/19 217 355 214 1.64
2019/20 225 427 223 1.9
2020/21 239 408 234 1.71
2021/22 238 394 237 1.66
2022/23 237 401 234 1.69
2023/24 226 409 222 1.81
2024/25 231 405 227 1.75
2025/26 225 406 221 1.8
2026/27 225 414 221 1.84

Places offered

225

in 2026/27

Named first choice

414

993 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

53.4%

221 of 414

Offers to families outside the council

24%

54 of 225 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

1,135

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,164

102.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

29

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

300

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 Mary's Catholic 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 Mary's Catholic 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Mary's Catholic School from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 1,150 places 1,093 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 1,137 on roll 2015/16 1,194 places 1,179 on roll 2016/17 1,390 places 1,253 on roll 2017/18 1,390 places 1,302 on roll 2018/19 1,390 places 1,362 on roll 2020/21 1,435 places 1,437 on roll 2021/22 1,435 places 1,447 on roll 2022/23 1,435 places 1,439 on roll 2023/24 1,435 places 1,437 on roll 2024/25 1,435 places 1,453 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 NE7 7PE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140081).

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.