School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Frederick Gough School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 33 families who named Frederick Gough School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 262 and 295 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

295 first preferences for 262 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Frederick Gough School

There is no published appeal success rate for Frederick Gough 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 North 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 Lincolnshire, 28.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 25 of 89 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 Lincolnshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not North 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

Frederick Gough School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Frederick Gough 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 1.1 per place 290 first choices 263 places 2016/17 1.23 per place 331 first choices 269 places 2017/18 1.27 per place 342 first choices 269 places 2018/19 1.2 per place 324 first choices 269 places 2019/20 1.2 per place 323 first choices 269 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 321 first choices 269 places 2021/22 1.09 per place 295 first choices 270 places 2022/23 1.25 per place 336 first choices 268 places 2023/24 1.25 per place 335 first choices 269 places 2024/25 1.3 per place 349 first choices 268 places 2025/26 1.22 per place 326 first choices 268 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 295 first choices 262 places
First preferences per place at Frederick Gough School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 295 first preferences for 262 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Frederick Gough School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 263 290 255 1.1
2016/17 269 331 267 1.23
2017/18 269 342 267 1.27
2018/19 269 324 267 1.2
2019/20 269 323 262 1.2
2020/21 269 321 266 1.19
2021/22 270 295 266 1.09
2022/23 268 336 262 1.25
2023/24 269 335 269 1.25
2024/25 268 349 264 1.3
2025/26 268 326 268 1.22
2026/27 262 295 262 1.13

Places offered

262

in 2026/27

Named first choice

295

463 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.8%

262 of 295

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 262 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

1,320

98.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

25

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 Frederick Gough 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 Frederick Gough School reported 25 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.1% 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 Frederick Gough School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,220 places 1,161 on roll 2010/11 1,220 places 1,105 on roll 2011/12 1,220 places 1,105 on roll 2012/13 1,220 places 1,133 on roll 2013/14 1,220 places 1,126 on roll 2014/15 1,314 places 1,171 on roll 2015/16 1,314 places 1,230 on roll 2016/17 1,314 places 1,256 on roll 2017/18 1,345 places 1,282 on roll 2018/19 1,345 places 1,314 on roll 2020/21 1,345 places 1,321 on roll 2021/22 1,345 places 1,335 on roll 2022/23 1,345 places 1,343 on roll 2023/24 1,345 places 1,329 on roll 2024/25 1,345 places 1,320 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
North Lincolnshire

Postcode DN16 3NG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118097).

Other contested secondary schools in North 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.