School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Arthur Mellows Village College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 38 families who named Arthur Mellows Village College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 262 and 287 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

287 first preferences for 262 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Arthur Mellows Village College

There is no published appeal success rate for Arthur Mellows Village College, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Peterborough 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 Peterborough, 12.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 29 of 230 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 Peterborough.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Peterborough 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

Arthur Mellows Village College 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 Arthur Mellows Village College, 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 1.18 per place 300 first choices 255 places 2016/17 1.23 per place 315 first choices 256 places 2017/18 1.2 per place 310 first choices 258 places 2018/19 1.3 per place 340 first choices 261 places 2019/20 1.3 per place 335 first choices 257 places 2020/21 1.2 per place 309 first choices 258 places 2021/22 1.37 per place 359 first choices 262 places 2022/23 1.23 per place 322 first choices 262 places 2023/24 1.19 per place 312 first choices 262 places 2024/25 1.08 per place 280 first choices 259 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 292 first choices 257 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 287 first choices 262 places
First preferences per place at Arthur Mellows Village College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 287 first preferences for 262 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Arthur Mellows Village College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 255 300 246 1.18
2016/17 256 315 251 1.23
2017/18 258 310 250 1.2
2018/19 261 340 254 1.3
2019/20 257 335 249 1.3
2020/21 258 309 249 1.2
2021/22 262 359 251 1.37
2022/23 262 322 258 1.23
2023/24 262 312 247 1.19
2024/25 259 280 238 1.08
2025/26 257 292 239 1.14
2026/27 262 287 249 1.1

Places offered

262

in 2026/27

Named first choice

287

573 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.8%

249 of 287

Offers to families outside the council

1%

3 of 262 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

1,631

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,307

80.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

324

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 Arthur Mellows Village College 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 Arthur Mellows Village College reported 324 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 80.1% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Arthur Mellows Village College from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,050 2,100 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,670 places 1,549 on roll 2011/12 1,560 places 1,577 on roll 2012/13 1,560 places 1,586 on roll 2013/14 1,560 places 1,581 on roll 2014/15 1,560 places 1,628 on roll 2015/16 1,560 places 1,636 on roll 2016/17 1,560 places 1,622 on roll 2017/18 1,720 places 1,580 on roll 2018/19 1,720 places 1,605 on roll 2020/21 1,720 places 1,677 on roll 2021/22 1,720 places 1,676 on roll 2022/23 1,720 places 1,655 on roll 2023/24 1,720 places 1,651 on roll 2024/25 2,031 places 1,652 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
Peterborough

Postcode PE6 7JX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136266).

Other contested secondary schools in Peterborough

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.