School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 56 families who named St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 115 and 169 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.

1.47

first choices for every place available

169 first preferences for 115 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary 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 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

St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy 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 St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary 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 1.14 per place 129 first choices 113 places 2016/17 1.34 per place 159 first choices 119 places 2017/18 1.39 per place 164 first choices 118 places 2018/19 1.6 per place 173 first choices 108 places 2019/20 1.67 per place 179 first choices 107 places 2020/21 1.45 per place 161 first choices 111 places 2021/22 1.23 per place 139 first choices 113 places 2022/23 1.18 per place 132 first choices 112 places 2023/24 1.25 per place 134 first choices 107 places 2024/25 1.57 per place 135 first choices 86 places 2025/26 1.18 per place 135 first choices 114 places 2026/27 1.47 per place 169 first choices 115 places
First preferences per place at St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 169 first preferences for 115 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 113 129 111 1.14
2016/17 119 159 114 1.34
2017/18 118 164 116 1.39
2018/19 108 173 106 1.6
2019/20 107 179 104 1.67
2020/21 111 161 105 1.45
2021/22 113 139 105 1.23
2022/23 112 132 105 1.18
2023/24 107 134 97 1.25
2024/25 86 135 85 1.57
2025/26 114 135 112 1.18
2026/27 115 169 113 1.47

Places offered

115

in 2026/27

Named first choice

169

319 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

66.9%

113 of 169

Offers to families outside the council

3%

4 of 115 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 121714.

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

563

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

598

106.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

35

reported as full or beyond

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 St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary 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 St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Augustine's Catholic School - a Catholic voluntary academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 350 700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 499 places 506 on roll 2010/11 499 places 507 on roll 2011/12 499 places 508 on roll 2012/13 499 places 504 on roll 2013/14 499 places 510 on roll 2014/15 499 places 528 on roll 2015/16 554 places 542 on roll 2016/17 554 places 556 on roll 2017/18 554 places 580 on roll 2018/19 563 places 597 on roll 2020/21 563 places 610 on roll 2021/22 563 places 607 on roll 2022/23 563 places 590 on roll 2023/24 563 places 591 on roll 2024/25 563 places 598 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
North Yorkshire

Postcode YO12 5LH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147212).

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.