School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Rushcliffe Spencer Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 26 families who named Rushcliffe Spencer Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 358 and 363 put it first.

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

1.01

first choices for every place available

363 first preferences for 358 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Rushcliffe Spencer Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Rushcliffe Spencer 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

Rushcliffe Spencer 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 Rushcliffe Spencer 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 1.08 per place 282 first choices 260 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 294 first choices 290 places 2017/18 1.14 per place 325 first choices 284 places 2018/19 1.11 per place 363 first choices 326 places 2019/20 1.03 per place 340 first choices 330 places 2020/21 1.12 per place 324 first choices 290 places 2021/22 1.21 per place 362 first choices 300 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 382 first choices 326 places 2023/24 1.13 per place 369 first choices 326 places 2024/25 1.17 per place 384 first choices 329 places 2025/26 1.18 per place 387 first choices 328 places 2026/27 1.01 per place 363 first choices 358 places
First preferences per place at Rushcliffe Spencer Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 363 first preferences for 358 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Rushcliffe Spencer Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 260 282 246 1.08
2016/17 290 294 276 1.01
2017/18 284 325 276 1.14
2018/19 326 363 314 1.11
2019/20 330 340 320 1.03
2020/21 290 324 279 1.12
2021/22 300 362 297 1.21
2022/23 326 382 325 1.17
2023/24 326 369 316 1.13
2024/25 329 384 325 1.17
2025/26 328 387 320 1.18
2026/27 358 363 337 1.01

Places offered

358

in 2026/27

Named first choice

363

1,057 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.8%

337 of 363

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 358 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

1,800

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,580

87.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

220

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

510

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 Rushcliffe Spencer 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 Rushcliffe Spencer Academy reported 220 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Rushcliffe Spencer Academy from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,200 2,400 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,415 places 1,413 on roll 2013/14 1,415 places 1,402 on roll 2014/15 1,415 places 1,414 on roll 2015/16 1,618 places 1,482 on roll 2016/17 1,618 places 1,511 on roll 2017/18 1,666 places 1,575 on roll 2018/19 1,920 places 1,675 on roll 2020/21 1,920 places 1,849 on roll 2021/22 1,920 places 1,930 on roll 2022/23 1,920 places 1,993 on roll 2023/24 1,920 places 2,002 on roll 2024/25 2,310 places 2,024 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 NG2 7BW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138482).

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.