School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at All Saints' Catholic Voluntary Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 81 families who named All Saints' Catholic Voluntary Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 188 and 267 put it first.

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

1.42

first choices for every place available

267 first preferences for 188 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at All Saints' Catholic Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for All Saints' 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 Nottinghamshire 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 Nottinghamshire, 24.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 340 of 1,374 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 Nottinghamshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Nottinghamshire 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

All Saints' 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 All Saints' 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 1.31 per place 243 first choices 185 places 2016/17 1.19 per place 221 first choices 186 places 2017/18 1.25 per place 233 first choices 186 places 2018/19 1.32 per place 250 first choices 190 places 2019/20 1.26 per place 215 first choices 171 places 2020/21 1.26 per place 242 first choices 192 places 2021/22 1.14 per place 218 first choices 192 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 216 first choices 192 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 237 first choices 192 places 2024/25 1.35 per place 257 first choices 190 places 2025/26 1.39 per place 261 first choices 188 places 2026/27 1.42 per place 267 first choices 188 places
First preferences per place at All Saints' Catholic Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 267 first preferences for 188 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at All Saints' 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
2015/16 185 243 182 1.31
2016/17 186 221 181 1.19
2017/18 186 233 185 1.25
2018/19 190 250 190 1.32
2019/20 171 215 157 1.26
2020/21 192 242 185 1.26
2021/22 192 218 177 1.14
2022/23 192 216 183 1.12
2023/24 192 237 187 1.23
2024/25 190 257 188 1.35
2025/26 188 261 183 1.39
2026/27 188 267 186 1.42

Places offered

188

in 2026/27

Named first choice

267

521 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

69.7%

186 of 267

Offers to families outside the council

6%

11 of 188 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

1,024

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

969

94.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

55

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

207

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 All Saints' 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 All Saints' Catholic Voluntary Academy reported 55 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.6% 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at All Saints' Catholic Voluntary Academy from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 1,118 places 1,047 on roll 2014/15 1,118 places 1,046 on roll 2015/16 1,096 places 1,056 on roll 2016/17 1,096 places 1,076 on roll 2017/18 1,096 places 1,055 on roll 2018/19 1,137 places 1,032 on roll 2020/21 1,107 places 1,093 on roll 2021/22 1,107 places 1,105 on roll 2022/23 1,167 places 1,110 on roll 2023/24 1,167 places 1,122 on roll 2024/25 1,231 places 1,130 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
Nottinghamshire

Postcode NG19 6BW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140698).

Other contested secondary schools in Nottinghamshire

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.