School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at South Craven School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named South Craven School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 266 and 301 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

301 first preferences for 266 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at South Craven School

There is no published appeal success rate for South Craven 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 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

South Craven School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at South Craven 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 292 first choices 264 places 2016/17 1.13 per place 300 first choices 266 places 2017/18 1.27 per place 334 first choices 264 places 2018/19 1.02 per place 271 first choices 266 places 2019/20 1.27 per place 341 first choices 268 places 2020/21 1.25 per place 335 first choices 267 places 2021/22 1.32 per place 352 first choices 267 places 2022/23 1.25 per place 332 first choices 265 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 332 first choices 276 places 2024/25 1.13 per place 325 first choices 287 places 2025/26 1.07 per place 286 first choices 267 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 301 first choices 266 places
First preferences per place at South Craven School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 301 first preferences for 266 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at South Craven School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 264 292 252 1.11
2016/17 266 300 258 1.13
2017/18 264 334 259 1.27
2018/19 266 271 258 1.02
2019/20 268 341 257 1.27
2020/21 267 335 259 1.25
2021/22 267 352 264 1.32
2022/23 265 332 262 1.25
2023/24 276 332 274 1.2
2024/25 287 325 280 1.13
2025/26 267 286 256 1.07
2026/27 266 301 262 1.13

Places offered

266

in 2026/27

Named first choice

301

599 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

87%

262 of 301

Offers to families outside the council

55%

147 of 266 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

1,350

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,522

112.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

172

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

419

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 South Craven 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 South Craven School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at South Craven School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,769 places 1,717 on roll 2011/12 1,769 places 1,699 on roll 2012/13 1,769 places 1,677 on roll 2013/14 1,766 places 1,714 on roll 2014/15 1,766 places 1,752 on roll 2015/16 1,766 places 1,711 on roll 2016/17 1,766 places 1,711 on roll 2017/18 1,798 places 1,726 on roll 2018/19 1,769 places 1,728 on roll 2020/21 1,769 places 1,813 on roll 2021/22 1,769 places 1,828 on roll 2022/23 1,769 places 1,864 on roll 2023/24 1,769 places 1,861 on roll 2024/25 1,769 places 1,856 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 Yorkshire

Postcode BD20 7RL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136736).

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.