School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 46 families who named Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 142 and 181 put it first.

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

1.27

first choices for every place available

181 first preferences for 142 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College

There is no published appeal success rate for Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England 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 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

Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College 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 Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England 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 1.11 per place 150 first choices 135 places 2016/17 1.33 per place 174 first choices 131 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 161 first choices 150 places 2018/19 1.28 per place 190 first choices 149 places 2019/20 1.4 per place 210 first choices 150 places 2020/21 1.27 per place 189 first choices 149 places 2021/22 1.49 per place 224 first choices 150 places 2022/23 1.46 per place 218 first choices 149 places 2023/24 1.35 per place 201 first choices 149 places 2024/25 1.2 per place 177 first choices 148 places 2025/26 1.27 per place 182 first choices 143 places 2026/27 1.27 per place 181 first choices 142 places
First preferences per place at Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 181 first preferences for 142 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 135 150 130 1.11
2016/17 131 174 130 1.33
2017/18 150 161 148 1.07
2018/19 149 190 146 1.28
2019/20 150 210 148 1.4
2020/21 149 189 147 1.27
2021/22 150 224 146 1.49
2022/23 149 218 147 1.46
2023/24 149 201 145 1.35
2024/25 148 177 138 1.2
2025/26 143 182 133 1.27
2026/27 142 181 135 1.27

Places offered

142

in 2026/27

Named first choice

181

424 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

74.6%

135 of 181

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 142 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

765

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

761

99.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

4

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 Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England 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 Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College reported 4 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.5% 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 Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 600 places 578 on roll 2010/11 600 places 627 on roll 2011/12 600 places 581 on roll 2012/13 600 places 574 on roll 2013/14 596 places 582 on roll 2014/15 596 places 583 on roll 2015/16 596 places 593 on roll 2016/17 637 places 610 on roll 2017/18 750 places 645 on roll 2018/19 750 places 683 on roll 2020/21 750 places 733 on roll 2021/22 750 places 748 on roll 2022/23 755 places 746 on roll 2023/24 759 places 750 on roll 2024/25 765 places 761 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 OL10 2AA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 131726).

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.