School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Hele's School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 53 families who named Hele's School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 233 and 279 put it first.

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

1.20

first choices for every place available

279 first preferences for 233 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Hele's School

There is no published appeal success rate for Hele's 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

Hele's 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 Hele's 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 0.97 per place 203 first choices 209 places 2016/17 0.95 per place 172 first choices 182 places 2017/18 0.94 per place 175 first choices 186 places 2018/19 0.9 per place 189 first choices 209 places 2019/20 0.9 per place 212 first choices 236 places 2020/21 1.01 per place 236 first choices 234 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 229 first choices 236 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 260 first choices 232 places 2023/24 0.97 per place 227 first choices 234 places 2024/25 1.21 per place 284 first choices 234 places 2025/26 1.16 per place 267 first choices 230 places 2026/27 1.2 per place 279 first choices 233 places
First preferences per place at Hele's School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 279 first preferences for 233 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Hele's School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 209 203 202 0.97
2016/17 182 172 172 0.95
2017/18 186 175 175 0.94
2018/19 209 189 187 0.9
2019/20 236 212 212 0.9
2020/21 234 236 201 1.01
2021/22 236 229 200 0.97
2022/23 232 260 222 1.12
2023/24 234 227 223 0.97
2024/25 234 284 229 1.21
2025/26 230 267 219 1.16
2026/27 233 279 226 1.2

Places offered

233

in 2026/27

Named first choice

279

554 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81%

226 of 279

Offers to families outside the council

6%

13 of 233 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

1,217

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,176

96.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

41

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

132

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 Hele's 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 Hele's School reported 41 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 Hele's School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,369 places 1,341 on roll 2011/12 1,349 places 1,319 on roll 2012/13 1,349 places 1,264 on roll 2013/14 1,349 places 1,240 on roll 2014/15 1,349 places 1,253 on roll 2015/16 1,349 places 1,237 on roll 2016/17 1,349 places 1,249 on roll 2017/18 1,349 places 1,236 on roll 2018/19 1,349 places 1,222 on roll 2020/21 1,349 places 1,302 on roll 2021/22 1,349 places 1,328 on roll 2022/23 1,349 places 1,340 on roll 2023/24 1,349 places 1,388 on roll 2024/25 1,349 places 1,385 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 PL7 4LT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136557).

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.