School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science?

In 2026/27, Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science offered 228 places and 210 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.92

first choices for every place available

210 first preferences for 228 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science

There is no published appeal success rate for Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science, 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 Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire, 21.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 87 of 411 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 Yorkshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not North Yorkshire 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

Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science turned first-choice families away in 6 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 Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science, 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 0.88 per place 192 first choices 219 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 216 first choices 226 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 231 first choices 235 places 2018/19 1.17 per place 274 first choices 234 places 2019/20 1.05 per place 246 first choices 234 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 228 first choices 231 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 182 first choices 198 places 2022/23 1.18 per place 273 first choices 232 places 2023/24 1.22 per place 282 first choices 231 places 2024/25 1.07 per place 240 first choices 224 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 274 first choices 227 places 2026/27 0.92 per place 210 first choices 228 places
First preferences per place at Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 210 first preferences for 228 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 219 192 192 0.88
2016/17 226 216 216 0.96
2017/18 235 231 228 0.98
2018/19 234 274 232 1.17
2019/20 234 246 233 1.05
2020/21 231 228 228 0.99
2021/22 198 182 182 0.92
2022/23 232 273 231 1.18
2023/24 231 282 229 1.22
2024/25 224 240 221 1.07
2025/26 227 274 227 1.21
2026/27 228 210 210 0.92

Places offered

228

in 2026/27

Named first choice

210

399 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

210 of 210

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 213 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

1,185

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,156

97.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

29

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 Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science 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 Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science 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 Selby High School Specialist School for the Arts and Science from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,120 places 1,026 on roll 2010/11 1,125 places 1,079 on roll 2011/12 1,117 places 1,095 on roll 2012/13 1,125 places 1,132 on roll 2013/14 1,125 places 1,096 on roll 2014/15 1,117 places 1,103 on roll 2015/16 1,100 places 1,098 on roll 2016/17 1,100 places 1,133 on roll 2017/18 1,185 places 1,142 on roll 2018/19 1,185 places 1,156 on roll 2020/21 1,185 places 1,167 on roll 2021/22 1,185 places 1,129 on roll 2022/23 1,185 places 1,146 on roll 2023/24 1,185 places 1,149 on roll 2024/25 1,185 places 1,156 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
North Yorkshire

Postcode YO8 4HT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 121702).

Other contested secondary schools in North Yorkshire

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.