School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Tuxford Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 21 families who named Tuxford Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 243 and 249 put it first.

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

1.02

first choices for every place available

249 first preferences for 243 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Tuxford Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Tuxford 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

Tuxford Academy turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Tuxford 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 1.2 per place 289 first choices 240 places 2016/17 1.18 per place 293 first choices 248 places 2017/18 1.21 per place 299 first choices 248 places 2018/19 1.19 per place 296 first choices 248 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 287 first choices 248 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 242 first choices 248 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 297 first choices 248 places 2022/23 1.02 per place 252 first choices 248 places 2023/24 1.03 per place 253 first choices 246 places 2024/25 1 per place 243 first choices 242 places 2025/26 0.98 per place 238 first choices 244 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 249 first choices 243 places
First preferences per place at Tuxford Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 249 first preferences for 243 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Tuxford Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 240 289 240 1.2
2016/17 248 293 244 1.18
2017/18 248 299 244 1.21
2018/19 248 296 246 1.19
2019/20 248 287 237 1.16
2020/21 248 242 242 0.98
2021/22 248 297 244 1.2
2022/23 248 252 231 1.02
2023/24 246 253 232 1.03
2024/25 242 243 235 1
2025/26 244 238 232 0.98
2026/27 243 249 228 1.02

Places offered

243

in 2026/27

Named first choice

249

530 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.6%

228 of 249

Offers to families outside the council

3%

7 of 243 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

1,240

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,229

99.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

11

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

400

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 Tuxford 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 Tuxford Academy reported 11 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.1% 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 Tuxford Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,478 places 1,483 on roll 2012/13 1,478 places 1,516 on roll 2013/14 1,512 places 1,556 on roll 2014/15 1,512 places 1,528 on roll 2015/16 1,462 places 1,517 on roll 2016/17 1,462 places 1,527 on roll 2017/18 1,464 places 1,526 on roll 2018/19 1,608 places 1,552 on roll 2020/21 1,640 places 1,491 on roll 2021/22 1,640 places 1,470 on roll 2022/23 1,640 places 1,485 on roll 2023/24 1,640 places 1,479 on roll 2024/25 1,640 places 1,466 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 NG22 0JH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137319).

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.