School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Broadland High Ormiston Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 14 families who named Broadland High Ormiston Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 150 and 164 put it first.

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

1.09

first choices for every place available

164 first preferences for 150 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Broadland High Ormiston Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Broadland High Ormiston 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 Norfolk 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 Norfolk, 43.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 244 of 565 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 Norfolk.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Norfolk 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

Broadland High Ormiston Academy turned first-choice families away in 6 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 Broadland High Ormiston 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 1.02 per place 137 first choices 134 places 2016/17 0.97 per place 141 first choices 146 places 2017/18 1.06 per place 159 first choices 150 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 149 first choices 150 places 2019/20 0.99 per place 148 first choices 150 places 2020/21 1.2 per place 177 first choices 148 places 2021/22 1.08 per place 155 first choices 143 places 2022/23 0.98 per place 144 first choices 147 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 168 first choices 152 places 2024/25 0.97 per place 144 first choices 149 places 2025/26 1 per place 138 first choices 138 places 2026/27 1.09 per place 164 first choices 150 places
First preferences per place at Broadland High Ormiston Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 164 first preferences for 150 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Broadland High Ormiston Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 134 137 129 1.02
2016/17 146 141 136 0.97
2017/18 150 159 146 1.06
2018/19 150 149 143 0.99
2019/20 150 148 144 0.99
2020/21 148 177 143 1.2
2021/22 143 155 140 1.08
2022/23 147 144 140 0.98
2023/24 152 168 149 1.11
2024/25 149 144 140 0.97
2025/26 138 138 138 1
2026/27 150 164 150 1.09

Places offered

150

in 2026/27

Named first choice

164

301 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.5%

150 of 164

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 150 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 121159.

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

794

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

743

93.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

51

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Broadland High Ormiston 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 Broadland High Ormiston Academy reported 51 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 93.6% 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 Broadland High Ormiston Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 703 places 706 on roll 2010/11 703 places 705 on roll 2011/12 717 places 693 on roll 2012/13 717 places 671 on roll 2013/14 717 places 657 on roll 2014/15 717 places 655 on roll 2015/16 750 places 663 on roll 2016/17 717 places 675 on roll 2017/18 717 places 679 on roll 2018/19 717 places 696 on roll 2020/21 717 places 727 on roll 2021/22 717 places 730 on roll 2022/23 717 places 746 on roll 2023/24 717 places 752 on roll 2024/25 794 places 743 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
Norfolk

Postcode NR12 8QN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146063).

Other contested secondary schools in Norfolk

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.