School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Humberston Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 48 families who named Humberston Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 172 and 219 put it first.

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

1.27

first choices for every place available

219 first preferences for 172 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Humberston Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Humberston 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 North East Lincolnshire 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 North East Lincolnshire, 40.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 38 of 94 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 North East Lincolnshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not North East Lincolnshire 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

Humberston Academy turned first-choice families away in 10 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 Humberston 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 0.97 per place 165 first choices 170 places 2016/17 1.23 per place 225 first choices 183 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 195 first choices 183 places 2018/19 1.39 per place 253 first choices 182 places 2019/20 1.35 per place 241 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.36 per place 244 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.11 per place 206 first choices 185 places 2022/23 1.31 per place 225 first choices 172 places 2023/24 1.5 per place 256 first choices 171 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 176 first choices 166 places 2025/26 0.95 per place 157 first choices 166 places 2026/27 1.27 per place 219 first choices 172 places
First preferences per place at Humberston Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 219 first preferences for 172 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Humberston Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 170 165 162 0.97
2016/17 183 225 182 1.23
2017/18 183 195 177 1.07
2018/19 182 253 181 1.39
2019/20 178 241 171 1.35
2020/21 180 244 171 1.36
2021/22 185 206 177 1.11
2022/23 172 225 169 1.31
2023/24 171 256 170 1.5
2024/25 166 176 160 1.06
2025/26 166 157 157 0.95
2026/27 172 219 171 1.27

Places offered

172

in 2026/27

Named first choice

219

404 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.1%

171 of 219

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 172 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

893

99.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

7

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 Humberston 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 Humberston Academy reported 7 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.2% 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 Humberston Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 750 places 710 on roll 2012/13 750 places 733 on roll 2013/14 825 places 781 on roll 2014/15 825 places 806 on roll 2015/16 825 places 812 on roll 2016/17 825 places 843 on roll 2017/18 825 places 858 on roll 2018/19 825 places 860 on roll 2020/21 825 places 899 on roll 2021/22 825 places 913 on roll 2022/23 825 places 906 on roll 2023/24 900 places 898 on roll 2024/25 900 places 893 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
North East Lincolnshire

Postcode DN36 4TF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137200).

Other contested secondary schools in North East Lincolnshire

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.