School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Framingham Earl High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 13 families who named Framingham Earl High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 167 and 177 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

177 first preferences for 167 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Framingham Earl High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Framingham Earl 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 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

Framingham Earl High School 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 Framingham Earl 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 0.9 per place 128 first choices 142 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 139 first choices 149 places 2017/18 1.02 per place 161 first choices 158 places 2018/19 0.94 per place 151 first choices 160 places 2019/20 1.07 per place 166 first choices 155 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 156 first choices 159 places 2021/22 1.02 per place 159 first choices 156 places 2022/23 0.95 per place 155 first choices 163 places 2023/24 1.08 per place 179 first choices 166 places 2024/25 0.97 per place 152 first choices 157 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 166 first choices 159 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 177 first choices 167 places
First preferences per place at Framingham Earl High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 177 first preferences for 167 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Framingham Earl 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
2015/16 142 128 128 0.9
2016/17 149 139 138 0.93
2017/18 158 161 151 1.02
2018/19 160 151 150 0.94
2019/20 155 166 150 1.07
2020/21 159 156 149 0.98
2021/22 156 159 145 1.02
2022/23 163 155 155 0.95
2023/24 166 179 161 1.08
2024/25 157 152 152 0.97
2025/26 159 166 157 1.04
2026/27 167 177 164 1.06

Places offered

167

in 2026/27

Named first choice

177

259 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.7%

164 of 177

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 167 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 121163.

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

851

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

798

93.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

53

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 Framingham Earl 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 Framingham Earl High School reported 53 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 93.8% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Framingham Earl High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 810 places 775 on roll 2010/11 810 places 760 on roll 2011/12 810 places 743 on roll 2012/13 808 places 721 on roll 2013/14 808 places 679 on roll 2014/15 808 places 675 on roll 2015/16 808 places 675 on roll 2016/17 808 places 708 on roll 2017/18 808 places 737 on roll 2018/19 808 places 761 on roll 2020/21 808 places 794 on roll 2021/22 808 places 794 on roll 2022/23 808 places 788 on roll 2023/24 808 places 793 on roll 2024/25 851 places 798 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 NR14 7QP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145776).

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.