School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Lynn Grove Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 41 families who named Lynn Grove Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 220 and 243 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

243 first preferences for 220 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Lynn Grove Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Lynn Grove 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

Lynn Grove Academy turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Lynn Grove 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 224 first choices 224 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 178 first choices 179 places 2017/18 0.94 per place 170 first choices 180 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 257 first choices 260 places 2019/20 1.03 per place 266 first choices 258 places 2020/21 1 per place 261 first choices 261 places 2021/22 1 per place 233 first choices 232 places 2022/23 0.96 per place 216 first choices 226 places 2023/24 1.09 per place 244 first choices 224 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 213 first choices 223 places 2025/26 1 per place 233 first choices 232 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 243 first choices 220 places
First preferences per place at Lynn Grove Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 243 first preferences for 220 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Lynn Grove Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 224 224 224 1
2016/17 179 178 178 0.99
2017/18 180 170 170 0.94
2018/19 260 257 248 0.99
2019/20 258 266 244 1.03
2020/21 261 261 254 1
2021/22 232 233 211 1
2022/23 226 216 201 0.96
2023/24 224 244 210 1.09
2024/25 223 213 189 0.96
2025/26 232 233 217 1
2026/27 220 243 202 1.1

Places offered

220

in 2026/27

Named first choice

243

404 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.1%

202 of 243

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 220 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

1,293

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,112

86% of capacity

Unfilled places

181

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 Lynn Grove 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 Lynn Grove Academy reported 181 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 86% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Lynn Grove Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,143 places 1,121 on roll 2012/13 1,143 places 1,117 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 1,110 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 1,104 on roll 2015/16 1,135 places 1,089 on roll 2016/17 1,135 places 1,037 on roll 2017/18 1,135 places 1,009 on roll 2018/19 1,125 places 1,047 on roll 2020/21 1,125 places 1,119 on roll 2021/22 1,125 places 1,154 on roll 2022/23 1,125 places 1,177 on roll 2023/24 1,125 places 1,138 on roll 2024/25 1,293 places 1,112 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
Norfolk

Postcode NR31 8AP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137541).

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.