School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Taverham High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 8 families who named Taverham High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 211 and 211 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

first choices for every place available

211 first preferences for 211 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Taverham High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Taverham 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

Taverham High School 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 Taverham 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 0.99 per place 165 first choices 166 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 199 first choices 213 places 2017/18 0.96 per place 187 first choices 195 places 2018/19 1.07 per place 235 first choices 220 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 208 first choices 218 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 214 first choices 218 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 187 first choices 204 places 2022/23 0.97 per place 212 first choices 218 places 2023/24 1.03 per place 229 first choices 223 places 2024/25 1.05 per place 222 first choices 212 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 246 first choices 210 places 2026/27 1 per place 211 first choices 211 places
First preferences per place at Taverham High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 211 first preferences for 211 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Taverham 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
2015/16 166 165 165 0.99
2016/17 213 199 199 0.93
2017/18 195 187 187 0.96
2018/19 220 235 218 1.07
2019/20 218 208 206 0.95
2020/21 218 214 199 0.98
2021/22 204 187 186 0.92
2022/23 218 212 212 0.97
2023/24 223 229 219 1.03
2024/25 212 222 209 1.05
2025/26 210 246 210 1.17
2026/27 211 211 203 1

Places offered

211

in 2026/27

Named first choice

211

381 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

96.2%

203 of 211

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 211 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

1,122

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,099

98% of capacity

Unfilled places

23

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

125

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 Taverham 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 Taverham High School reported 23 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Taverham High School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,100 places 1,163 on roll 2013/14 1,249 places 1,134 on roll 2014/15 1,249 places 1,151 on roll 2015/16 1,249 places 1,113 on roll 2016/17 1,249 places 1,132 on roll 2017/18 1,249 places 1,135 on roll 2018/19 1,249 places 1,181 on roll 2020/21 1,249 places 1,191 on roll 2021/22 1,249 places 1,152 on roll 2022/23 1,249 places 1,203 on roll 2023/24 1,249 places 1,246 on roll 2024/25 1,247 places 1,241 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 NR8 6HP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 139487).

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.