School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Devonport High School for Boys?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 26 families who named Devonport High School for Boys as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 208 and 234 put it first.

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

1.12

first choices for every place available

234 first preferences for 208 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Devonport High School for Boys

There is no published appeal success rate for Devonport High School for Boys, 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

Devonport High School for Boys 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 Devonport High School for Boys, 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 1.12 per place 193 first choices 172 places 2016/17 1.08 per place 188 first choices 174 places 2017/18 1.11 per place 199 first choices 180 places 2018/19 1.17 per place 210 first choices 179 places 2019/20 1.23 per place 220 first choices 179 places 2020/21 1.17 per place 208 first choices 178 places 2021/22 1.71 per place 305 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 204 first choices 181 places 2023/24 1.17 per place 210 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.12 per place 235 first choices 210 places 2025/26 1.09 per place 226 first choices 208 places 2026/27 1.12 per place 234 first choices 208 places
First preferences per place at Devonport High School for Boys. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 234 first preferences for 208 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Devonport High School for Boys, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 172 193 171 1.12
2016/17 174 188 173 1.08
2017/18 180 199 180 1.11
2018/19 179 210 179 1.17
2019/20 179 220 179 1.23
2020/21 178 208 177 1.17
2021/22 178 305 177 1.71
2022/23 181 204 181 1.13
2023/24 179 210 179 1.17
2024/25 210 235 209 1.12
2025/26 208 226 207 1.09
2026/27 208 234 208 1.12

Places offered

208

in 2026/27

Named first choice

234

261 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.9%

208 of 234

Offers to families outside the council

33%

69 of 208 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

870

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

931

107% of capacity

Over its capacity by

61

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

290

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 Devonport High School for Boys 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 Devonport High School for Boys 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 Devonport High School for Boys from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,147 places 1,149 on roll 2011/12 1,160 places 1,135 on roll 2012/13 1,160 places 1,146 on roll 2013/14 1,160 places 1,164 on roll 2014/15 1,160 places 1,162 on roll 2015/16 1,160 places 1,148 on roll 2016/17 1,160 places 1,161 on roll 2017/18 1,160 places 1,210 on roll 2018/19 1,190 places 1,229 on roll 2020/21 1,160 places 1,238 on roll 2021/22 1,160 places 1,266 on roll 2022/23 1,160 places 1,239 on roll 2023/24 1,160 places 1,233 on roll 2024/25 1,160 places 1,265 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Plymouth

Postcode PL1 5QP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136496).

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.