School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Brooke Weston Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 130 families who named Brooke Weston Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 180 and 291 put it first.

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

1.62

first choices for every place available

291 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Brooke Weston Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Brooke Weston 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 Northamptonshire 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 Northamptonshire, 17% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 91 of 534 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 Northamptonshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not North Northamptonshire 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

Brooke Weston Academy 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 Brooke Weston Academy, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.3 per place 402 first choices 175 places 2016/17 2.04 per place 361 first choices 177 places 2017/18 2 per place 352 first choices 176 places 2018/19 2.49 per place 434 first choices 174 places 2019/20 2.45 per place 417 first choices 170 places 2020/21 2.2 per place 393 first choices 179 places 2021/22 2.52 per place 443 first choices 176 places 2022/23 2.17 per place 362 first choices 167 places 2023/24 2.02 per place 356 first choices 176 places 2024/25 1.82 per place 297 first choices 163 places 2025/26 1.7 per place 295 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.62 per place 291 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Brooke Weston Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 291 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Brooke Weston Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 175 402 162 2.3
2016/17 177 361 154 2.04
2017/18 176 352 164 2
2018/19 174 434 152 2.49
2019/20 170 417 144 2.45
2020/21 179 393 155 2.2
2021/22 176 443 151 2.52
2022/23 167 362 144 2.17
2023/24 176 356 162 2.02
2024/25 163 297 149 1.82
2025/26 174 295 159 1.7
2026/27 180 291 161 1.62

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

291

664 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

55.3%

161 of 291

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 180 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

925

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

908

98.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

17

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Brooke Weston 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 Brooke Weston Academy reported 17 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.2% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Brooke Weston Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,200 places 1,219 on roll 2010/11 1,200 places 1,223 on roll 2011/12 1,207 places 1,207 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,171 on roll 2013/14 1,225 places 1,154 on roll 2014/15 1,225 places 1,163 on roll 2015/16 1,225 places 1,162 on roll 2016/17 1,225 places 1,159 on roll 2017/18 1,225 places 1,172 on roll 2018/19 1,225 places 1,173 on roll 2020/21 1,225 places 1,196 on roll 2021/22 1,225 places 1,194 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 1,183 on roll 2023/24 1,225 places 1,185 on roll 2024/25 1,225 places 1,174 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
North Northamptonshire

Postcode NN18 8LA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135317).

Other contested secondary schools in North Northamptonshire

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.