School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Anne's Church of England Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 56 families who named St Anne's Church of England Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 171 and 198 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

198 first preferences for 171 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Anne's Church of England Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for St Anne's Church of England Academy, 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

St Anne's Church of England Academy turned first-choice families away in 1 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 St Anne's Church of England Academy, 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 0.83 per place 112 first choices 135 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 108 first choices 121 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 134 first choices 137 places 2018/19 0.73 per place 105 first choices 143 places 2019/20 0.78 per place 120 first choices 153 places 2020/21 0.69 per place 110 first choices 160 places 2021/22 0.62 per place 109 first choices 177 places 2022/23 0.78 per place 87 first choices 111 places 2023/24 0.6 per place 88 first choices 146 places 2024/25 0.71 per place 104 first choices 146 places 2025/26 0.96 per place 166 first choices 173 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 198 first choices 171 places
First preferences per place at St Anne's Church of England Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 198 first preferences for 171 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Anne's Church of England Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 135 112 112 0.83
2016/17 121 108 108 0.89
2017/18 137 134 134 0.98
2018/19 143 105 105 0.73
2019/20 153 120 120 0.78
2020/21 160 110 108 0.69
2021/22 177 109 109 0.62
2022/23 111 87 87 0.78
2023/24 146 88 87 0.6
2024/25 146 104 104 0.71
2025/26 173 166 152 0.96
2026/27 171 198 142 1.16

Places offered

171

in 2026/27

Named first choice

198

488 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

71.7%

142 of 198

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 171 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

791

87.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

109

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 St Anne's Church of England Academy 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 St Anne's Church of England Academy reported 109 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87.9% 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 St Anne's Church of England Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 640 on roll 2010/11 900 places 615 on roll 2011/12 900 places 624 on roll 2012/13 900 places 660 on roll 2013/14 900 places 671 on roll 2014/15 900 places 683 on roll 2015/16 900 places 679 on roll 2016/17 900 places 678 on roll 2017/18 900 places 694 on roll 2018/19 900 places 726 on roll 2020/21 900 places 772 on roll 2021/22 900 places 789 on roll 2022/23 900 places 766 on roll 2023/24 900 places 774 on roll 2024/25 900 places 791 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Rochdale

Postcode M24 6XN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135313).

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.