School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy?

In 2026/27, Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy offered 265 places and 186 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.70

first choices for every place available

186 first preferences for 265 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary 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 Oldham 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 Oldham, 10% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 74 of 740 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 Oldham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Oldham 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

Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 4 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary 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 0.8 per place 235 first choices 295 places 2016/17 0.97 per place 291 first choices 300 places 2017/18 0.95 per place 279 first choices 294 places 2018/19 1.17 per place 344 first choices 295 places 2019/20 1.44 per place 424 first choices 295 places 2020/21 1.29 per place 378 first choices 294 places 2021/22 1.02 per place 303 first choices 296 places 2022/23 1.14 per place 336 first choices 294 places 2023/24 0.98 per place 286 first choices 293 places 2024/25 0.89 per place 261 first choices 292 places 2025/26 0.85 per place 246 first choices 288 places 2026/27 0.7 per place 186 first choices 265 places
First preferences per place at Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 186 first preferences for 265 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 295 235 235 0.8
2016/17 300 291 250 0.97
2017/18 294 279 242 0.95
2018/19 295 344 263 1.17
2019/20 295 424 261 1.44
2020/21 294 378 254 1.29
2021/22 296 303 256 1.02
2022/23 294 336 255 1.14
2023/24 293 286 255 0.98
2024/25 292 261 224 0.89
2025/26 288 246 236 0.85
2026/27 265 186 186 0.7

Places offered

265

in 2026/27

Named first choice

186

535 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

186 of 186

Offers to families outside the council

8%

20 of 244 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 136432.

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

1,500

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,491

99.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

9

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary 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 Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy reported 9 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.4% 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 Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,000 2,000 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,926 places 1,569 on roll 2012/13 1,800 places 1,427 on roll 2013/14 1,800 places 1,400 on roll 2014/15 1,800 places 1,396 on roll 2015/16 1,500 places 1,421 on roll 2016/17 1,500 places 1,485 on roll 2017/18 1,500 places 1,507 on roll 2018/19 1,500 places 1,499 on roll 2020/21 1,500 places 1,495 on roll 2021/22 1,500 places 1,506 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,510 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,490 on roll 2024/25 1,500 places 1,491 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
Oldham

Postcode OL9 9QY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149461).

Other contested secondary schools in Oldham

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.