School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 18 families who named City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 269 and 278 put it first.

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

1.03

first choices for every place available

278 first preferences for 269 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for City of Norwich School, An 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

City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 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 City of Norwich School, An 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 257 first choices 252 places 2016/17 0.98 per place 264 first choices 269 places 2017/18 1.13 per place 314 first choices 279 places 2018/19 1.08 per place 291 first choices 270 places 2019/20 1.24 per place 334 first choices 269 places 2020/21 1.04 per place 279 first choices 269 places 2021/22 1.12 per place 295 first choices 264 places 2022/23 1 per place 272 first choices 271 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 299 first choices 270 places 2024/25 1 per place 263 first choices 263 places 2025/26 0.92 per place 222 first choices 242 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 278 first choices 269 places
First preferences per place at City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 278 first preferences for 269 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at City of Norwich School, An 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
2015/16 252 257 240 1.02
2016/17 269 264 255 0.98
2017/18 279 314 268 1.13
2018/19 270 291 250 1.08
2019/20 269 334 242 1.24
2020/21 269 279 253 1.04
2021/22 264 295 251 1.12
2022/23 271 272 255 1
2023/24 270 299 248 1.11
2024/25 263 263 243 1
2025/26 242 222 222 0.92
2026/27 269 278 260 1.03

Places offered

269

in 2026/27

Named first choice

278

562 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

93.5%

260 of 278

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 269 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

1,345

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,329

98.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

410

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 City of Norwich School, An 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 City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy reported 16 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.8% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 1,730 places 1,516 on roll 2015/16 1,730 places 1,557 on roll 2016/17 1,730 places 1,549 on roll 2017/18 1,730 places 1,579 on roll 2018/19 1,730 places 1,594 on roll 2020/21 1,730 places 1,676 on roll 2021/22 1,730 places 1,731 on roll 2022/23 1,755 places 1,741 on roll 2023/24 1,755 places 1,725 on roll 2024/25 1,755 places 1,712 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 NR4 6PP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141269).

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.