School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Matthew Moss High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 23 families who named Matthew Moss High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 227 and 227 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

first choices for every place available

227 first preferences for 227 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Matthew Moss High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Matthew Moss 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

Matthew Moss High School turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 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 Matthew Moss 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 0.95 per place 131 first choices 138 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 129 first choices 137 places 2017/18 0.92 per place 101 first choices 110 places 2018/19 0.69 per place 131 first choices 189 places 2019/20 0.84 per place 182 first choices 216 places 2020/21 1.02 per place 253 first choices 249 places 2021/22 1 per place 237 first choices 236 places 2022/23 1.07 per place 252 first choices 235 places 2023/24 1.24 per place 296 first choices 239 places 2024/25 1.3 per place 299 first choices 230 places 2025/26 1.2 per place 271 first choices 226 places 2026/27 1 per place 227 first choices 227 places
First preferences per place at Matthew Moss High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 227 first preferences for 227 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Matthew Moss 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
2015/16 138 131 129 0.95
2016/17 137 129 129 0.94
2017/18 110 101 101 0.92
2018/19 189 131 131 0.69
2019/20 216 182 182 0.84
2020/21 249 253 228 1.02
2021/22 236 237 210 1
2022/23 235 252 216 1.07
2023/24 239 296 232 1.24
2024/25 230 299 216 1.3
2025/26 226 271 215 1.2
2026/27 227 227 204 1

Places offered

227

in 2026/27

Named first choice

227

627 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.9%

204 of 227

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 227 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 105839.

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

1,229

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,217

99% of capacity

Unfilled places

12

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 Matthew Moss 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 Matthew Moss High School reported 12 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99% 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 Matthew Moss 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 2009/10 924 places 883 on roll 2010/11 924 places 894 on roll 2011/12 924 places 867 on roll 2012/13 924 places 844 on roll 2013/14 900 places 802 on roll 2014/15 900 places 799 on roll 2015/16 900 places 782 on roll 2016/17 900 places 771 on roll 2017/18 900 places 738 on roll 2018/19 900 places 826 on roll 2020/21 1,200 places 1,059 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 1,116 on roll 2022/23 1,220 places 1,208 on roll 2023/24 1,220 places 1,207 on roll 2024/25 1,229 places 1,217 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
Rochdale

Postcode OL11 3LU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147369).

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.