School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Oxford Spires Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named Oxford Spires Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 210 put it first and 193 of them were offered one.

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

17

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

210 first preferences for 213 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Oxford Spires Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Oxford Spires 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 Oxfordshire 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 Oxfordshire, 43% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 238 of 553 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 Oxfordshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Oxfordshire 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

Oxford Spires Academy turned first-choice families away in 8 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 Oxford Spires 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 0.75 per place 156 first choices 208 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 191 first choices 215 places 2017/18 1.13 per place 247 first choices 218 places 2018/19 0.9 per place 198 first choices 219 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 252 first choices 217 places 2020/21 1.02 per place 222 first choices 218 places 2021/22 1.22 per place 259 first choices 213 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 239 first choices 217 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 220 first choices 216 places 2024/25 1.22 per place 264 first choices 216 places 2025/26 1.06 per place 223 first choices 211 places 2026/27 0.99 per place 210 first choices 213 places
First preferences per place at Oxford Spires Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 210 first preferences for 213 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Oxford Spires Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 208 156 156 0.75
2016/17 215 191 191 0.89
2017/18 218 247 196 1.13
2018/19 219 198 187 0.9
2019/20 217 252 187 1.16
2020/21 218 222 184 1.02
2021/22 213 259 204 1.22
2022/23 217 239 188 1.1
2023/24 216 220 179 1.02
2024/25 216 264 204 1.22
2025/26 211 223 196 1.06
2026/27 213 210 193 0.99

Places offered

213

in 2026/27

Named first choice

210

509 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.9%

193 of 210

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 213 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

1,100

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,131

102.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

31

reported as full or beyond

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 Oxford Spires 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 Oxford Spires Academy was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Oxford Spires Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,300 places 889 on roll 2011/12 1,300 places 806 on roll 2012/13 1,300 places 764 on roll 2013/14 1,300 places 742 on roll 2014/15 1,300 places 807 on roll 2015/16 1,300 places 880 on roll 2016/17 1,350 places 988 on roll 2017/18 1,350 places 1,089 on roll 2018/19 1,350 places 1,198 on roll 2020/21 1,350 places 1,317 on roll 2021/22 1,350 places 1,318 on roll 2022/23 1,350 places 1,341 on roll 2023/24 1,350 places 1,329 on roll 2024/25 1,350 places 1,313 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Oxfordshire

Postcode OX4 2AU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136261).

Other contested secondary schools in Oxfordshire

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.