School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Devonport High School for Girls?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 93 families who named Devonport High School for Girls as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 158 and 250 put it first.

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

1.58

first choices for every place available

250 first preferences for 158 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Devonport High School for Girls

There is no published appeal success rate for Devonport High School for Girls, 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 Girls 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 Girls, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.46 per place 174 first choices 119 places 2016/17 1.47 per place 175 first choices 119 places 2017/18 1.28 per place 159 first choices 124 places 2018/19 1.54 per place 191 first choices 124 places 2019/20 1.57 per place 195 first choices 124 places 2020/21 1.44 per place 177 first choices 123 places 2021/22 2.17 per place 256 first choices 118 places 2022/23 1.67 per place 199 first choices 119 places 2023/24 1.16 per place 182 first choices 157 places 2024/25 1.44 per place 228 first choices 158 places 2025/26 1.51 per place 237 first choices 157 places 2026/27 1.58 per place 250 first choices 158 places
First preferences per place at Devonport High School for Girls. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 250 first preferences for 158 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Devonport High School for Girls, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 119 174 119 1.46
2016/17 119 175 119 1.47
2017/18 124 159 123 1.28
2018/19 124 191 123 1.54
2019/20 124 195 124 1.57
2020/21 123 177 123 1.44
2021/22 118 256 118 2.17
2022/23 119 199 119 1.67
2023/24 157 182 157 1.16
2024/25 158 228 158 1.44
2025/26 157 237 157 1.51
2026/27 158 250 157 1.58

Places offered

158

in 2026/27

Named first choice

250

346 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.8%

157 of 250

Offers to families outside the council

40%

63 of 158 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

718

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

695

96.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

23

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

122

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 Girls 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 Girls reported 23 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.8% 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 Devonport High School for Girls from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 814 places 810 on roll 2011/12 840 places 802 on roll 2012/13 840 places 798 on roll 2013/14 840 places 825 on roll 2014/15 840 places 830 on roll 2015/16 840 places 823 on roll 2016/17 840 places 823 on roll 2017/18 840 places 822 on roll 2018/19 840 places 841 on roll 2020/21 840 places 831 on roll 2021/22 840 places 825 on roll 2022/23 840 places 824 on roll 2023/24 840 places 860 on roll 2024/25 840 places 916 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 PL2 3DL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136588).

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.