School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sir John Nelthorpe School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 7 families who named Sir John Nelthorpe School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 144 and 145 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.

1.01

first choices for every place available

145 first preferences for 144 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sir John Nelthorpe School

There is no published appeal success rate for Sir John Nelthorpe 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

Sir John Nelthorpe School 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 Sir John Nelthorpe 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 0.95 per place 114 first choices 120 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 129 first choices 138 places 2017/18 1.01 per place 157 first choices 156 places 2018/19 0.93 per place 142 first choices 152 places 2019/20 0.91 per place 138 first choices 151 places 2020/21 0.93 per place 122 first choices 131 places 2021/22 0.93 per place 139 first choices 150 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 191 first choices 156 places 2023/24 0.98 per place 186 first choices 190 places 2024/25 0.93 per place 176 first choices 190 places 2025/26 0.98 per place 169 first choices 173 places 2026/27 1.01 per place 145 first choices 144 places
First preferences per place at Sir John Nelthorpe School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 145 first preferences for 144 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sir John Nelthorpe School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 114 114 0.95
2016/17 138 129 129 0.93
2017/18 156 157 150 1.01
2018/19 152 142 142 0.93
2019/20 151 138 138 0.91
2020/21 131 122 122 0.93
2021/22 150 139 139 0.93
2022/23 156 191 152 1.22
2023/24 190 186 186 0.98
2024/25 190 176 176 0.93
2025/26 173 169 169 0.98
2026/27 144 145 138 1.01

Places offered

144

in 2026/27

Named first choice

145

300 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.2%

138 of 145

Offers to families outside the council

8%

11 of 144 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

770

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

796

103.4% of capacity

Over its capacity by

26

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

68

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 Sir John Nelthorpe 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 Sir John Nelthorpe School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Sir John Nelthorpe School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 859 places 759 on roll 2010/11 859 places 695 on roll 2011/12 832 places 636 on roll 2012/13 830 places 579 on roll 2013/14 832 places 575 on roll 2014/15 832 places 580 on roll 2015/16 832 places 597 on roll 2016/17 867 places 623 on roll 2017/18 887 places 674 on roll 2018/19 887 places 721 on roll 2020/21 870 places 749 on roll 2021/22 870 places 779 on roll 2022/23 838 places 785 on roll 2023/24 838 places 835 on roll 2024/25 838 places 866 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
Voluntary controlled school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
North Lincolnshire

Postcode DN20 8AA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118112).

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.