School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Coombe Dean School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 95 families who named Coombe Dean School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 170 and 262 put it first.

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

1.54

first choices for every place available

262 first preferences for 170 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Coombe Dean School

There is no published appeal success rate for Coombe Dean 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 Plymouth 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 Plymouth, 17.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 35 of 201 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 Plymouth.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Plymouth 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

Coombe Dean School turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 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 Coombe Dean 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 1.07 per place 188 first choices 175 places 2016/17 1.2 per place 214 first choices 178 places 2017/18 0.82 per place 136 first choices 165 places 2018/19 1 per place 174 first choices 174 places 2019/20 0.97 per place 170 first choices 176 places 2020/21 0.58 per place 97 first choices 167 places 2021/22 0.65 per place 91 first choices 140 places 2022/23 0.73 per place 109 first choices 149 places 2023/24 0.95 per place 166 first choices 175 places 2024/25 1.1 per place 193 first choices 175 places 2025/26 1.4 per place 236 first choices 169 places 2026/27 1.54 per place 262 first choices 170 places
First preferences per place at Coombe Dean School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 262 first preferences for 170 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Coombe Dean School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 175 188 172 1.07
2016/17 178 214 175 1.2
2017/18 165 136 136 0.82
2018/19 174 174 150 1
2019/20 176 170 155 0.97
2020/21 167 97 97 0.58
2021/22 140 91 89 0.65
2022/23 149 109 109 0.73
2023/24 175 166 162 0.95
2024/25 175 193 167 1.1
2025/26 169 236 165 1.4
2026/27 170 262 167 1.54

Places offered

170

in 2026/27

Named first choice

262

517 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

63.7%

167 of 262

Offers to families outside the council

11%

18 of 170 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

869

96.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

31

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

280

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 Coombe Dean 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 Coombe Dean School reported 31 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.6% 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 Coombe Dean School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,079 places 1,092 on roll 2011/12 1,180 places 1,083 on roll 2012/13 1,180 places 1,065 on roll 2013/14 1,180 places 1,028 on roll 2014/15 1,180 places 1,030 on roll 2015/16 1,180 places 1,064 on roll 2016/17 1,180 places 1,027 on roll 2017/18 1,180 places 985 on roll 2018/19 1,180 places 1,011 on roll 2020/21 1,180 places 1,029 on roll 2021/22 1,180 places 996 on roll 2022/23 1,180 places 1,020 on roll 2023/24 1,180 places 998 on roll 2024/25 1,180 places 997 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
Plymouth

Postcode PL9 8ES. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136558).

Other contested secondary schools in Plymouth

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.