School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Duchess's Community High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 1 families who named The Duchess's Community High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 188 and 189 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Northumberland actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 8 years of official figures.

1.01

first choices for every place available

189 first preferences for 188 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Duchess's Community High School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Duchess's Community High 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 Northumberland 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 Northumberland, 42.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 113 of 265 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 Northumberland.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Northumberland 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

The Duchess's Community High School turned first-choice families away in 4 of the last 8 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at The Duchess's Community High School, 2019/20 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 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2019/20 1 per place 253 first choices 253 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 231 first choices 233 places 2021/22 1.01 per place 214 first choices 212 places 2022/23 1 per place 237 first choices 237 places 2023/24 1 per place 215 first choices 214 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 209 first choices 218 places 2025/26 1.02 per place 170 first choices 167 places 2026/27 1.01 per place 189 first choices 188 places
First preferences per place at The Duchess's Community High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 189 first preferences for 188 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Duchess's Community High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2019/20 253 253 253 1
2020/21 233 231 231 0.99
2021/22 212 214 212 1.01
2022/23 237 237 237 1
2023/24 214 215 214 1
2024/25 218 209 209 0.96
2025/26 167 170 167 1.02
2026/27 188 189 188 1.01

Places offered

188

in 2026/27

Named first choice

189

198 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

99.5%

188 of 189

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 188 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 122362.

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

1,251

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,099

87.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

152

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

400

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 The Duchess's Community High 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 The Duchess's Community High School reported 152 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87.8% 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 The Duchess's Community High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,164 places 1,148 on roll 2010/11 1,164 places 1,159 on roll 2011/12 1,181 places 1,160 on roll 2012/13 1,181 places 1,161 on roll 2013/14 1,181 places 1,112 on roll 2014/15 1,181 places 1,099 on roll 2015/16 1,063 places 1,053 on roll 2016/17 1,063 places 1,028 on roll 2017/18 1,651 places 1,447 on roll 2018/19 1,651 places 1,428 on roll 2020/21 1,651 places 1,492 on roll 2021/22 1,651 places 1,475 on roll 2022/23 1,651 places 1,435 on roll 2023/24 1,651 places 1,396 on roll 2024/25 1,651 places 1,338 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
Northumberland

Postcode NE66 2DH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 150196).

Other contested secondary schools in Northumberland

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.