School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 81 families who named Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 201 and 275 put it first.

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

1.37

first choices for every place available

275 first preferences for 201 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High 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 Rochdale 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 Rochdale, 21.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 76 of 357 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 Rochdale.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Rochdale 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

Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 10 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 Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High 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 1.18 per place 213 first choices 180 places 2016/17 0.98 per place 200 first choices 205 places 2017/18 0.96 per place 216 first choices 225 places 2018/19 1.12 per place 233 first choices 208 places 2019/20 1.06 per place 219 first choices 207 places 2020/21 1 per place 219 first choices 218 places 2021/22 1.22 per place 257 first choices 210 places 2022/23 1.07 per place 223 first choices 209 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 211 first choices 207 places 2024/25 1.21 per place 246 first choices 203 places 2025/26 1.34 per place 258 first choices 193 places 2026/27 1.37 per place 275 first choices 201 places
First preferences per place at Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 275 first preferences for 201 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 180 213 176 1.18
2016/17 205 200 197 0.98
2017/18 225 216 215 0.96
2018/19 208 233 198 1.12
2019/20 207 219 198 1.06
2020/21 218 219 195 1
2021/22 210 257 196 1.22
2022/23 209 223 202 1.07
2023/24 207 211 197 1.02
2024/25 203 246 199 1.21
2025/26 193 258 188 1.34
2026/27 201 275 194 1.37

Places offered

201

in 2026/27

Named first choice

275

590 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.5%

194 of 275

Offers to families outside the council

13%

27 of 201 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

1,060

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,067

100.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

7

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

180

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 Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High 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 Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,055 places 1,090 on roll 2010/11 1,055 places 1,090 on roll 2011/12 1,055 places 1,050 on roll 2012/13 1,055 places 1,026 on roll 2013/14 1,060 places 1,062 on roll 2014/15 1,060 places 1,042 on roll 2015/16 1,060 places 1,050 on roll 2016/17 1,103 places 1,065 on roll 2017/18 1,230 places 1,072 on roll 2018/19 1,230 places 1,106 on roll 2020/21 1,230 places 1,190 on roll 2021/22 1,230 places 1,192 on roll 2022/23 1,240 places 1,206 on roll 2023/24 1,240 places 1,213 on roll 2024/25 1,240 places 1,194 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Rochdale

Postcode M24 2GL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 105844).

Other contested secondary schools in Rochdale

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.