School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Latimer Arts College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 35 families who named The Latimer Arts College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 238 and 261 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.

1.10

first choices for every place available

261 first preferences for 238 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Latimer Arts College

There is no published appeal success rate for The Latimer Arts College, 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

The Latimer Arts College turned first-choice families away in 9 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 The Latimer Arts College, 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 0.96 per place 185 first choices 192 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 187 first choices 199 places 2017/18 0.89 per place 171 first choices 193 places 2018/19 1.14 per place 227 first choices 199 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 229 first choices 198 places 2020/21 1.11 per place 219 first choices 198 places 2021/22 1.27 per place 245 first choices 193 places 2022/23 1.24 per place 244 first choices 196 places 2023/24 1.22 per place 246 first choices 202 places 2024/25 1.13 per place 229 first choices 202 places 2025/26 1.03 per place 240 first choices 232 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 261 first choices 238 places
First preferences per place at The Latimer Arts College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 261 first preferences for 238 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Latimer Arts College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 192 185 168 0.96
2016/17 199 187 183 0.94
2017/18 193 171 171 0.89
2018/19 199 227 178 1.14
2019/20 198 229 186 1.16
2020/21 198 219 181 1.11
2021/22 193 245 186 1.27
2022/23 196 244 192 1.24
2023/24 202 246 189 1.22
2024/25 202 229 182 1.13
2025/26 232 240 212 1.03
2026/27 238 261 226 1.1

Places offered

238

in 2026/27

Named first choice

261

567 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.6%

226 of 261

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 238 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

1,077

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,022

94.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

55

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 The Latimer Arts College 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 The Latimer Arts College reported 55 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.9% 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 The Latimer Arts College 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 1,175 places 1,154 on roll 2010/11 1,179 places 1,142 on roll 2011/12 1,179 places 1,109 on roll 2012/13 1,182 places 1,044 on roll 2013/14 1,182 places 1,024 on roll 2014/15 1,182 places 1,050 on roll 2015/16 1,182 places 1,056 on roll 2016/17 1,182 places 1,047 on roll 2017/18 1,182 places 1,076 on roll 2018/19 1,182 places 1,077 on roll 2020/21 1,182 places 1,132 on roll 2021/22 1,167 places 1,118 on roll 2022/23 1,167 places 1,108 on roll 2023/24 1,167 places 1,144 on roll 2024/25 1,277 places 1,166 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
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
North Northamptonshire

Postcode NN15 6SW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 122066).

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.