School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Samworth Church Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named Samworth Church Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 176 and 181 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

181 first preferences for 176 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Samworth Church Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Samworth Church 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

Samworth Church 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 Samworth Church 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 1.06 per place 191 first choices 180 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 190 first choices 180 places 2017/18 1.28 per place 230 first choices 180 places 2018/19 1.28 per place 230 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.31 per place 236 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.34 per place 241 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.19 per place 215 first choices 180 places 2022/23 1.24 per place 224 first choices 180 places 2023/24 1.21 per place 217 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 244 first choices 179 places 2025/26 1.28 per place 236 first choices 185 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 181 first choices 176 places
First preferences per place at Samworth Church Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 181 first preferences for 176 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Samworth Church Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 180 191 174 1.06
2016/17 180 190 180 1.06
2017/18 180 230 170 1.28
2018/19 180 230 177 1.28
2019/20 180 236 174 1.31
2020/21 180 241 176 1.34
2021/22 180 215 164 1.19
2022/23 180 224 171 1.24
2023/24 180 217 169 1.21
2024/25 179 244 178 1.36
2025/26 185 236 178 1.28
2026/27 176 181 164 1.03

Places offered

176

in 2026/27

Named first choice

181

528 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.6%

164 of 181

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 176 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

1,039

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

904

87% of capacity

Unfilled places

135

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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 Samworth Church 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 Samworth Church Academy reported 135 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87% 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 Samworth Church Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,150 places 755 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 820 on roll 2011/12 1,150 places 895 on roll 2012/13 1,150 places 1,001 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 1,055 on roll 2014/15 1,205 places 1,088 on roll 2015/16 1,205 places 1,140 on roll 2016/17 1,205 places 1,164 on roll 2017/18 1,180 places 1,138 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 1,116 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 1,038 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,041 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,034 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,003 on roll 2024/25 1,289 places 1,002 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Nottinghamshire

Postcode NG18 2DY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135583).

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.