School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Walker Riverside Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 73 families who named Walker Riverside Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 219 and 276 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.

1.26

first choices for every place available

276 first preferences for 219 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Walker Riverside Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Walker Riverside 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 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

Walker Riverside Academy turned first-choice families away in 4 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 Walker Riverside 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 per place 160 first choices 160 places 2016/17 1 per place 161 first choices 161 places 2017/18 1 per place 178 first choices 178 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 173 first choices 178 places 2019/20 0.79 per place 151 first choices 192 places 2020/21 0.94 per place 206 first choices 220 places 2021/22 0.93 per place 213 first choices 230 places 2022/23 0.88 per place 193 first choices 220 places 2023/24 1.27 per place 280 first choices 220 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 299 first choices 220 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 265 first choices 219 places 2026/27 1.26 per place 276 first choices 219 places
First preferences per place at Walker Riverside Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 276 first preferences for 219 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Walker Riverside Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 160 160 160 1
2016/17 161 161 160 1
2017/18 178 178 178 1
2018/19 178 173 172 0.97
2019/20 192 151 151 0.79
2020/21 220 206 206 0.94
2021/22 230 213 212 0.93
2022/23 220 193 192 0.88
2023/24 220 280 211 1.27
2024/25 220 299 207 1.36
2025/26 219 265 208 1.21
2026/27 219 276 203 1.26

Places offered

219

in 2026/27

Named first choice

276

420 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73.6%

203 of 276

Offers to families outside the council

2%

4 of 219 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 108525.

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

1,100

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,121

101.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

21

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 Walker Riverside 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 Walker Riverside Academy 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Walker Riverside Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,301 places 1,162 on roll 2010/11 1,301 places 1,110 on roll 2011/12 1,298 places 1,052 on roll 2012/13 1,254 places 1,059 on roll 2013/14 1,254 places 1,032 on roll 2014/15 1,254 places 1,071 on roll 2015/16 1,254 places 1,111 on roll 2016/17 1,254 places 1,093 on roll 2017/18 1,254 places 1,086 on roll 2018/19 1,254 places 1,107 on roll 2020/21 1,254 places 1,146 on roll 2021/22 1,254 places 1,193 on roll 2022/23 1,254 places 1,153 on roll 2023/24 1,300 places 1,110 on roll 2024/25 1,300 places 1,121 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
Newcastle upon Tyne

Postcode NE6 4AW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145528).

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.