School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Kettering Buccleuch Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 97 families who named Kettering Buccleuch Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 180 and 264 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.

1.47

first choices for every place available

264 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Kettering Buccleuch Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Kettering Buccleuch 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

Kettering Buccleuch 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 Kettering Buccleuch 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 0.9 per place 147 first choices 163 places 2016/17 1 per place 175 first choices 175 places 2017/18 1.35 per place 238 first choices 176 places 2018/19 1.42 per place 247 first choices 174 places 2019/20 1.33 per place 234 first choices 176 places 2020/21 1.47 per place 255 first choices 173 places 2021/22 1.39 per place 248 first choices 179 places 2022/23 1.11 per place 197 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.53 per place 267 first choices 175 places 2024/25 1.95 per place 322 first choices 165 places 2025/26 1.49 per place 259 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.47 per place 264 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Kettering Buccleuch Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 264 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Kettering Buccleuch Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 163 147 147 0.9
2016/17 175 175 161 1
2017/18 176 238 171 1.35
2018/19 174 247 155 1.42
2019/20 176 234 161 1.33
2020/21 173 255 161 1.47
2021/22 179 248 157 1.39
2022/23 177 197 159 1.11
2023/24 175 267 157 1.53
2024/25 165 322 157 1.95
2025/26 174 259 164 1.49
2026/27 180 264 167 1.47

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

264

661 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

63.3%

167 of 264

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

1,620

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,618

99.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Kettering Buccleuch 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 Kettering Buccleuch Academy reported 2 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.9% 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 Kettering Buccleuch Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,000 2,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,770 places 1,175 on roll 2010/11 1,770 places 1,160 on roll 2011/12 1,770 places 1,224 on roll 2012/13 1,770 places 1,267 on roll 2013/14 1,770 places 1,324 on roll 2014/15 1,770 places 1,388 on roll 2015/16 1,770 places 1,526 on roll 2016/17 1,770 places 1,608 on roll 2017/18 1,770 places 1,681 on roll 2018/19 1,770 places 1,739 on roll 2020/21 1,770 places 1,803 on roll 2021/22 1,770 places 1,845 on roll 2022/23 1,770 places 1,859 on roll 2023/24 1,980 places 1,872 on roll 2024/25 1,980 places 1,850 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
North Northamptonshire

Postcode NN16 9NS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135966).

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.