School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Becket School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 62 families who named The Becket School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 229 put it first.

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

1.34

first choices for every place available

229 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Becket School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Becket School, 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

The Becket School 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 The Becket School, 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 1.28 per place 212 first choices 166 places 2016/17 1.27 per place 211 first choices 166 places 2017/18 1.3 per place 212 first choices 163 places 2018/19 1.28 per place 212 first choices 165 places 2019/20 1.28 per place 205 first choices 160 places 2020/21 1.19 per place 208 first choices 175 places 2021/22 1.14 per place 199 first choices 174 places 2022/23 1.29 per place 220 first choices 170 places 2023/24 1.37 per place 238 first choices 174 places 2024/25 1.39 per place 244 first choices 175 places 2025/26 1.26 per place 220 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.34 per place 229 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at The Becket School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 229 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Becket School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 166 212 165 1.28
2016/17 166 211 162 1.27
2017/18 163 212 161 1.3
2018/19 165 212 154 1.28
2019/20 160 205 153 1.28
2020/21 175 208 167 1.19
2021/22 174 199 166 1.14
2022/23 170 220 164 1.29
2023/24 174 238 166 1.37
2024/25 175 244 166 1.39
2025/26 174 220 167 1.26
2026/27 171 229 167 1.34

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

229

751 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

72.9%

167 of 229

Offers to families outside the council

64%

109 of 171 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

1,028

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

901

87.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

127

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

231

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 The Becket School 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 The Becket School reported 127 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87.6% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Becket School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,147 places 1,061 on roll 2012/13 1,147 places 1,071 on roll 2013/14 1,147 places 1,073 on roll 2014/15 1,147 places 1,081 on roll 2015/16 1,147 places 1,091 on roll 2016/17 1,147 places 1,120 on roll 2017/18 1,147 places 1,112 on roll 2018/19 1,061 places 1,115 on roll 2020/21 1,061 places 1,112 on roll 2021/22 1,061 places 1,124 on roll 2022/23 1,106 places 1,158 on roll 2023/24 1,106 places 1,182 on roll 2024/25 1,259 places 1,176 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 NG2 7QY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137409).

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.