School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Redhill Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 16 families who named Redhill Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 265 and 272 put it first.

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

1.03

first choices for every place available

272 first preferences for 265 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Redhill Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Redhill 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

Redhill 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 Redhill 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 1.37 per place 335 first choices 245 places 2016/17 1.23 per place 319 first choices 260 places 2017/18 1.34 per place 352 first choices 262 places 2018/19 1.27 per place 320 first choices 252 places 2019/20 1.35 per place 363 first choices 269 places 2020/21 1.34 per place 363 first choices 270 places 2021/22 1.21 per place 314 first choices 260 places 2022/23 1.38 per place 372 first choices 269 places 2023/24 1.26 per place 326 first choices 259 places 2024/25 1.15 per place 309 first choices 268 places 2025/26 1.39 per place 373 first choices 268 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 272 first choices 265 places
First preferences per place at Redhill Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 272 first preferences for 265 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Redhill Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 245 335 242 1.37
2016/17 260 319 252 1.23
2017/18 262 352 258 1.34
2018/19 252 320 245 1.27
2019/20 269 363 263 1.35
2020/21 270 363 263 1.34
2021/22 260 314 246 1.21
2022/23 269 372 265 1.38
2023/24 259 326 256 1.26
2024/25 268 309 264 1.15
2025/26 268 373 266 1.39
2026/27 265 272 256 1.03

Places offered

265

in 2026/27

Named first choice

272

871 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

94.1%

256 of 272

Offers to families outside the council

20%

52 of 265 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

1,334

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,257

94.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

77

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

219

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 Redhill 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 Redhill Academy reported 77 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.2% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Redhill Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,298 places 1,316 on roll 2011/12 1,326 places 1,290 on roll 2012/13 1,316 places 1,300 on roll 2013/14 1,316 places 1,347 on roll 2014/15 1,328 places 1,362 on roll 2015/16 1,461 places 1,371 on roll 2016/17 1,461 places 1,452 on roll 2017/18 1,425 places 1,519 on roll 2018/19 1,457 places 1,523 on roll 2020/21 1,409 places 1,616 on roll 2021/22 1,526 places 1,594 on roll 2022/23 1,526 places 1,572 on roll 2023/24 1,526 places 1,581 on roll 2024/25 1,553 places 1,563 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
Nottinghamshire

Postcode NG5 8GX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136361).

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.