School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Hans Price Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 38 families who named Hans Price Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 196 and 234 put it first.

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

1.19

first choices for every place available

234 first preferences for 196 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Hans Price Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Hans Price 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 Somerset 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 Somerset, 14.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 14 of 98 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 Somerset.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not North Somerset 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

Hans Price Academy turned first-choice families away in 7 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 Hans Price 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 0.8 per place 94 first choices 117 places 2016/17 0.82 per place 92 first choices 112 places 2017/18 0.93 per place 141 first choices 151 places 2018/19 0.9 per place 164 first choices 182 places 2019/20 0.95 per place 207 first choices 218 places 2020/21 1.11 per place 231 first choices 208 places 2021/22 1.02 per place 209 first choices 204 places 2022/23 1.07 per place 220 first choices 205 places 2023/24 1.1 per place 224 first choices 204 places 2024/25 1.2 per place 248 first choices 206 places 2025/26 1.16 per place 236 first choices 203 places 2026/27 1.19 per place 234 first choices 196 places
First preferences per place at Hans Price Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 234 first preferences for 196 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Hans Price Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 117 94 94 0.8
2016/17 112 92 92 0.82
2017/18 151 141 140 0.93
2018/19 182 164 164 0.9
2019/20 218 207 207 0.95
2020/21 208 231 205 1.11
2021/22 204 209 198 1.02
2022/23 205 220 200 1.07
2023/24 204 224 203 1.1
2024/25 206 248 199 1.2
2025/26 203 236 191 1.16
2026/27 196 234 196 1.19

Places offered

196

in 2026/27

Named first choice

234

362 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.8%

196 of 234

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 196 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,029

98% of capacity

Unfilled places

21

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Hans Price 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 Hans Price Academy reported 21 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Hans Price Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,200 places 750 on roll 2011/12 1,003 places 733 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 682 on roll 2013/14 1,200 places 614 on roll 2014/15 1,200 places 556 on roll 2015/16 1,200 places 580 on roll 2016/17 1,200 places 575 on roll 2017/18 1,200 places 657 on roll 2018/19 1,200 places 812 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 965 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,007 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,016 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,035 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,029 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 Somerset

Postcode BS23 3QP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136708).

Other contested secondary schools in North Somerset

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.