School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sir John Hunt Community Sports College?

In 2026/27, Sir John Hunt Community Sports College offered 151 places and 148 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.98

first choices for every place available

148 first preferences for 151 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sir John Hunt Community Sports College

There is no published appeal success rate for Sir John Hunt Community Sports College, 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

Sir John Hunt Community Sports College turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Sir John Hunt Community Sports College, 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 0.91 per place 93 first choices 102 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 112 first choices 117 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 113 first choices 128 places 2018/19 1.04 per place 153 first choices 147 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 170 first choices 147 places 2020/21 1.09 per place 159 first choices 146 places 2021/22 1.08 per place 158 first choices 146 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 161 first choices 146 places 2023/24 0.89 per place 130 first choices 146 places 2024/25 0.88 per place 141 first choices 160 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 163 first choices 151 places 2026/27 0.98 per place 148 first choices 151 places
First preferences per place at Sir John Hunt Community Sports College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 148 first preferences for 151 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sir John Hunt Community Sports College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 102 93 93 0.91
2016/17 117 112 112 0.96
2017/18 128 113 112 0.88
2018/19 147 153 125 1.04
2019/20 147 170 128 1.16
2020/21 146 159 132 1.09
2021/22 146 158 133 1.08
2022/23 146 161 134 1.1
2023/24 146 130 123 0.89
2024/25 160 141 141 0.88
2025/26 151 163 145 1.08
2026/27 151 148 148 0.98

Places offered

151

in 2026/27

Named first choice

148

271 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

148 of 148

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 151 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

680

90.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

70

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

107

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 Sir John Hunt Community Sports College 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 Sir John Hunt Community Sports College reported 70 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 90.7% 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 Sir John Hunt Community Sports College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 689 on roll 2010/11 895 places 726 on roll 2011/12 895 places 799 on roll 2012/13 895 places 783 on roll 2013/14 895 places 763 on roll 2014/15 895 places 761 on roll 2015/16 910 places 716 on roll 2016/17 937 places 715 on roll 2017/18 922 places 726 on roll 2018/19 922 places 730 on roll 2020/21 891 places 826 on roll 2021/22 887 places 830 on roll 2022/23 857 places 774 on roll 2023/24 857 places 759 on roll 2024/25 857 places 756 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
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Plymouth

Postcode PL5 4AA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 113533).

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.