School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England Voluntary Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 47 families who named St Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England Voluntary Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 113 and 160 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.

1.42

first choices for every place available

160 first preferences for 113 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England 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 Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England 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 Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England 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 1.1 per place 95 first choices 86 places 2016/17 1.16 per place 103 first choices 89 places 2017/18 1.26 per place 150 first choices 119 places 2018/19 1.38 per place 163 first choices 118 places 2019/20 1.15 per place 136 first choices 118 places 2020/21 1.27 per place 153 first choices 120 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 178 first choices 148 places 2022/23 1.39 per place 163 first choices 117 places 2023/24 1.26 per place 147 first choices 117 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 147 first choices 117 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 122 first choices 117 places 2026/27 1.42 per place 160 first choices 113 places
First preferences per place at St Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 160 first preferences for 113 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England 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 86 95 85 1.1
2016/17 89 103 89 1.16
2017/18 119 150 118 1.26
2018/19 118 163 118 1.38
2019/20 118 136 118 1.15
2020/21 120 153 119 1.27
2021/22 148 178 148 1.2
2022/23 117 163 117 1.39
2023/24 117 147 117 1.26
2024/25 117 147 115 1.26
2025/26 117 122 114 1.04
2026/27 113 160 113 1.42

Places offered

113

in 2026/27

Named first choice

160

309 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.6%

113 of 160

Offers to families outside the council

6%

7 of 113 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 121715.

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

585

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

606

103.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

21

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 Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England 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 Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England 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 Francis Xavier School - a Joint Catholic and Church of England 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 2009/10 548 places 449 on roll 2010/11 548 places 461 on roll 2011/12 565 places 467 on roll 2012/13 565 places 463 on roll 2013/14 565 places 467 on roll 2014/15 442 places 468 on roll 2015/16 536 places 457 on roll 2016/17 535 places 455 on roll 2017/18 535 places 485 on roll 2018/19 488 places 516 on roll 2020/21 488 places 573 on roll 2021/22 535 places 615 on roll 2022/23 585 places 604 on roll 2023/24 585 places 601 on roll 2024/25 585 places 606 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 DL10 7DA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147213).

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.