School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wollaston School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 1 families who named Wollaston School as their first choice did not get a place: 211 put it first and 210 of them were offered one.

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

1

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

211 first preferences for 231 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wollaston School

There is no published appeal success rate for Wollaston 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 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

Wollaston School turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Wollaston 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 1.11 per place 261 first choices 236 places 2016/17 0.91 per place 215 first choices 235 places 2017/18 1.17 per place 276 first choices 235 places 2018/19 1 per place 251 first choices 250 places 2019/20 1.09 per place 260 first choices 238 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 231 first choices 235 places 2021/22 1.08 per place 252 first choices 233 places 2022/23 0.98 per place 230 first choices 234 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 226 first choices 235 places 2024/25 1.02 per place 239 first choices 234 places 2025/26 0.95 per place 227 first choices 240 places 2026/27 0.91 per place 211 first choices 231 places
First preferences per place at Wollaston School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 211 first preferences for 231 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wollaston School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 236 261 218 1.11
2016/17 235 215 215 0.91
2017/18 235 276 218 1.17
2018/19 250 251 232 1
2019/20 238 260 215 1.09
2020/21 235 231 215 0.98
2021/22 233 252 225 1.08
2022/23 234 230 216 0.98
2023/24 235 226 202 0.96
2024/25 234 239 211 1.02
2025/26 240 227 210 0.95
2026/27 231 211 210 0.91

Places offered

231

in 2026/27

Named first choice

211

419 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

99.5%

210 of 211

Offers to families outside the council

13%

29 of 230 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 122059.

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

1,234

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,205

97.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

29

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 Wollaston 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 Wollaston School reported 29 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.6% 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 Wollaston School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,366 places 1,360 on roll 2010/11 1,390 places 1,390 on roll 2011/12 1,390 places 1,389 on roll 2012/13 1,411 places 1,387 on roll 2013/14 1,423 places 1,368 on roll 2014/15 1,421 places 1,378 on roll 2015/16 1,438 places 1,406 on roll 2016/17 1,464 places 1,430 on roll 2017/18 1,471 places 1,421 on roll 2018/19 1,471 places 1,425 on roll 2020/21 1,471 places 1,438 on roll 2021/22 1,471 places 1,406 on roll 2022/23 1,471 places 1,406 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,430 on roll 2024/25 1,534 places 1,425 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 Northamptonshire

Postcode NN29 7PH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146489).

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.