School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Outwood Academy Foxhills?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 16 families who named Outwood Academy Foxhills as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 146 and 161 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.

1.10

first choices for every place available

161 first preferences for 146 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Outwood Academy Foxhills

There is no published appeal success rate for Outwood Academy Foxhills, 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

Outwood Academy Foxhills turned first-choice families away in 3 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 Outwood Academy Foxhills, 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 0.54 per place 62 first choices 115 places 2016/17 0.64 per place 82 first choices 128 places 2017/18 0.62 per place 77 first choices 125 places 2018/19 0.76 per place 109 first choices 144 places 2019/20 0.87 per place 125 first choices 144 places 2020/21 0.83 per place 121 first choices 146 places 2021/22 0.91 per place 130 first choices 143 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 159 first choices 150 places 2023/24 0.86 per place 129 first choices 150 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 143 first choices 149 places 2025/26 1.1 per place 164 first choices 149 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 161 first choices 146 places
First preferences per place at Outwood Academy Foxhills. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 161 first preferences for 146 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Outwood Academy Foxhills, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 115 62 62 0.54
2016/17 128 82 82 0.64
2017/18 125 77 77 0.62
2018/19 144 109 109 0.76
2019/20 144 125 125 0.87
2020/21 146 121 121 0.83
2021/22 143 130 130 0.91
2022/23 150 159 139 1.06
2023/24 150 129 129 0.86
2024/25 149 143 143 0.96
2025/26 149 164 146 1.1
2026/27 146 161 145 1.1

Places offered

146

in 2026/27

Named first choice

161

267 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.1%

145 of 161

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 146 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

729

97.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

21

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 Outwood Academy Foxhills 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 Outwood Academy Foxhills reported 21 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.2% 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 Outwood Academy Foxhills from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 760 places 694 on roll 2012/13 750 places 652 on roll 2013/14 750 places 627 on roll 2014/15 750 places 569 on roll 2015/16 750 places 536 on roll 2016/17 750 places 559 on roll 2017/18 750 places 596 on roll 2018/19 750 places 623 on roll 2020/21 750 places 675 on roll 2021/22 750 places 672 on roll 2022/23 750 places 709 on roll 2023/24 750 places 694 on roll 2024/25 750 places 729 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 Lincolnshire

Postcode DN15 8LJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137004).

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.