School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Huntcliff School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 5 families who named Huntcliff School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 117 and 122 put it first.

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

1.04

first choices for every place available

122 first preferences for 117 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Huntcliff School

There is no published appeal success rate for Huntcliff 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 Redcar and Cleveland 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 Redcar and Cleveland, 17.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 21 of 117 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 Redcar and Cleveland.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Redcar and Cleveland 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

Huntcliff School turned first-choice families away in 4 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 Huntcliff 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 1.27 per place 136 first choices 107 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 100 first choices 99 places 2017/18 0.93 per place 95 first choices 102 places 2018/19 0.89 per place 82 first choices 92 places 2019/20 1.03 per place 109 first choices 106 places 2020/21 0.95 per place 97 first choices 102 places 2021/22 0.91 per place 97 first choices 107 places 2022/23 0.84 per place 87 first choices 103 places 2023/24 0.99 per place 111 first choices 112 places 2024/25 0.88 per place 92 first choices 104 places 2025/26 1 per place 121 first choices 121 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 122 first choices 117 places
First preferences per place at Huntcliff School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 122 first preferences for 117 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Huntcliff School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 107 136 107 1.27
2016/17 99 100 99 1.01
2017/18 102 95 95 0.93
2018/19 92 82 82 0.89
2019/20 106 109 98 1.03
2020/21 102 97 93 0.95
2021/22 107 97 97 0.91
2022/23 103 87 87 0.84
2023/24 112 111 111 0.99
2024/25 104 92 91 0.88
2025/26 121 121 121 1
2026/27 117 122 117 1.04

Places offered

117

in 2026/27

Named first choice

122

195 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.9%

117 of 122

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 117 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 111726.

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

563

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

534

94.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

29

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Huntcliff 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 Huntcliff School reported 29 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.8% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Huntcliff School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 300 600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 563 places 489 on roll 2010/11 563 places 499 on roll 2011/12 563 places 512 on roll 2012/13 563 places 525 on roll 2013/14 563 places 533 on roll 2014/15 563 places 526 on roll 2015/16 563 places 534 on roll 2016/17 563 places 532 on roll 2017/18 563 places 522 on roll 2018/19 563 places 529 on roll 2020/21 563 places 531 on roll 2021/22 563 places 525 on roll 2022/23 563 places 515 on roll 2023/24 563 places 529 on roll 2024/25 563 places 534 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Redcar and Cleveland

Postcode TS12 1HJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 148335).

Other contested secondary schools in Redcar and Cleveland

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.