School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St John Fisher Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 47 families who named St John Fisher Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 136 and 149 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

149 first preferences for 136 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St John Fisher Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St John Fisher Catholic High 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 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

St John Fisher Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 1 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 St John Fisher Catholic High 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 0.49 per place 59 first choices 121 places 2016/17 0.76 per place 81 first choices 107 places 2017/18 0.75 per place 83 first choices 110 places 2018/19 0.82 per place 106 first choices 130 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 153 first choices 132 places 2020/21 1.11 per place 143 first choices 129 places 2021/22 1.19 per place 152 first choices 128 places 2022/23 1.21 per place 156 first choices 129 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 134 first choices 128 places 2024/25 1.31 per place 161 first choices 123 places 2025/26 0.81 per place 103 first choices 127 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 149 first choices 136 places
First preferences per place at St John Fisher Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 149 first preferences for 136 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St John Fisher Catholic High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 121 59 59 0.49
2016/17 107 81 80 0.76
2017/18 110 83 81 0.75
2018/19 130 106 99 0.82
2019/20 132 153 113 1.16
2020/21 129 143 106 1.11
2021/22 128 152 100 1.19
2022/23 129 156 106 1.21
2023/24 128 134 116 1.05
2024/25 123 161 99 1.31
2025/26 127 103 84 0.81
2026/27 136 149 102 1.1

Places offered

136

in 2026/27

Named first choice

149

357 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.5%

102 of 149

Offers to families outside the council

8%

11 of 136 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 110907.

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

718

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

671

93.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

47

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

160

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 St John Fisher Catholic High 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 St John Fisher Catholic High School reported 47 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 93.5% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St John Fisher Catholic High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 787 places 745 on roll 2010/11 779 places 723 on roll 2011/12 779 places 746 on roll 2012/13 753 places 729 on roll 2013/14 753 places 688 on roll 2014/15 753 places 707 on roll 2015/16 753 places 710 on roll 2016/17 753 places 699 on roll 2017/18 785 places 679 on roll 2018/19 815 places 728 on roll 2020/21 815 places 807 on roll 2021/22 815 places 802 on roll 2022/23 815 places 786 on roll 2023/24 815 places 798 on roll 2024/25 878 places 828 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
Peterborough

Postcode PE1 5JN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 151414).

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.