School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Stokesley School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 19 families who named Stokesley School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 202 and 213 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.

1.05

first choices for every place available

213 first preferences for 202 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Stokesley School

There is no published appeal success rate for Stokesley 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

Stokesley School turned first-choice families away in 2 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 Stokesley 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 0.9 per place 176 first choices 196 places 2016/17 0.95 per place 197 first choices 207 places 2017/18 0.94 per place 180 first choices 192 places 2018/19 0.92 per place 183 first choices 198 places 2019/20 0.85 per place 173 first choices 203 places 2020/21 0.97 per place 184 first choices 189 places 2021/22 0.93 per place 174 first choices 188 places 2022/23 0.91 per place 156 first choices 172 places 2023/24 1 per place 180 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.01 per place 195 first choices 194 places 2025/26 0.95 per place 196 first choices 206 places 2026/27 1.05 per place 213 first choices 202 places
First preferences per place at Stokesley School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 213 first preferences for 202 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Stokesley School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 196 176 175 0.9
2016/17 207 197 197 0.95
2017/18 192 180 180 0.94
2018/19 198 183 183 0.92
2019/20 203 173 173 0.85
2020/21 189 184 183 0.97
2021/22 188 174 174 0.93
2022/23 172 156 155 0.91
2023/24 180 180 176 1
2024/25 194 195 188 1.01
2025/26 206 196 195 0.95
2026/27 202 213 194 1.05

Places offered

202

in 2026/27

Named first choice

213

422 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.1%

194 of 213

Offers to families outside the council

43%

87 of 202 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 121669.

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

1,110

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

902

81.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

208

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Stokesley 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 Stokesley School reported 208 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 81.3% 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 Stokesley School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,410 places 1,242 on roll 2010/11 1,461 places 1,240 on roll 2011/12 1,396 places 1,233 on roll 2012/13 1,412 places 1,184 on roll 2013/14 1,375 places 1,132 on roll 2014/15 1,385 places 1,149 on roll 2015/16 1,385 places 1,179 on roll 2016/17 1,360 places 1,164 on roll 2017/18 1,410 places 1,165 on roll 2018/19 1,410 places 1,176 on roll 2020/21 1,410 places 1,142 on roll 2021/22 1,410 places 1,129 on roll 2022/23 1,410 places 1,114 on roll 2023/24 1,410 places 1,064 on roll 2024/25 1,410 places 1,047 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 TS9 5AL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141930).

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.