School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bluecoat Aspley Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 117 families who named Bluecoat Aspley Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 187 and 275 put it first.

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

1.47

first choices for every place available

275 first preferences for 187 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bluecoat Aspley Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Bluecoat Aspley 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 Nottingham 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 Nottingham, 19.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 226 of 1,149 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 Nottingham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Nottingham 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

Bluecoat Aspley 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 Bluecoat Aspley Academy, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.36 per place 449 first choices 330 places 2016/17 1.39 per place 455 first choices 328 places 2017/18 1.49 per place 489 first choices 328 places 2018/19 1.44 per place 475 first choices 329 places 2019/20 2.35 per place 418 first choices 178 places 2020/21 2.12 per place 398 first choices 188 places 2021/22 2.19 per place 390 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.87 per place 351 first choices 188 places 2023/24 1.86 per place 348 first choices 187 places 2024/25 1.65 per place 294 first choices 178 places 2025/26 1.3 per place 236 first choices 181 places 2026/27 1.47 per place 275 first choices 187 places
First preferences per place at Bluecoat Aspley Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 275 first preferences for 187 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bluecoat Aspley Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 330 449 286 1.36
2016/17 328 455 299 1.39
2017/18 328 489 281 1.49
2018/19 329 475 293 1.44
2019/20 178 418 163 2.35
2020/21 188 398 172 2.12
2021/22 178 390 158 2.19
2022/23 188 351 164 1.87
2023/24 187 348 150 1.86
2024/25 178 294 146 1.65
2025/26 181 236 152 1.3
2026/27 187 275 158 1.47

Places offered

187

in 2026/27

Named first choice

275

843 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

57.5%

158 of 275

Offers to families outside the council

5%

9 of 187 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

933

103.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

33

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

500

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 Bluecoat Aspley 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 Bluecoat Aspley 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Bluecoat Aspley Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,250 2,500 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,850 places 1,821 on roll 2012/13 2,000 places 1,861 on roll 2013/14 2,000 places 1,976 on roll 2014/15 2,470 places 2,067 on roll 2015/16 2,470 places 2,183 on roll 2016/17 2,470 places 2,292 on roll 2017/18 1,500 places 1,488 on roll 2018/19 1,500 places 1,503 on roll 2020/21 1,400 places 1,397 on roll 2021/22 1,400 places 1,400 on roll 2022/23 1,400 places 1,373 on roll 2023/24 1,400 places 1,375 on roll 2024/25 1,400 places 1,355 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
Nottingham

Postcode NG8 5GY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137798).

Other contested secondary schools in Nottingham

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.