School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wingfield Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 14 families who named Wingfield Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 195 and 208 put it first.

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

1.07

first choices for every place available

208 first preferences for 195 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wingfield Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Wingfield 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 Rotherham 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 Rotherham, 50.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 232 of 460 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 Rotherham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Rotherham 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

Wingfield Academy turned first-choice families away in 6 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 Wingfield 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 1 per place 142 first choices 142 places 2016/17 1 per place 142 first choices 142 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 125 first choices 126 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 192 first choices 193 places 2019/20 0.98 per place 191 first choices 194 places 2020/21 1 per place 219 first choices 220 places 2021/22 1.2 per place 239 first choices 200 places 2022/23 1.21 per place 239 first choices 198 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 207 first choices 194 places 2024/25 1.12 per place 219 first choices 195 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 206 first choices 191 places 2026/27 1.07 per place 208 first choices 195 places
First preferences per place at Wingfield Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 208 first preferences for 195 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wingfield Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 142 142 142 1
2016/17 142 142 142 1
2017/18 126 125 125 0.99
2018/19 193 192 192 0.99
2019/20 194 191 191 0.98
2020/21 220 219 219 1
2021/22 200 239 197 1.2
2022/23 198 239 198 1.21
2023/24 194 207 190 1.07
2024/25 195 219 193 1.12
2025/26 191 206 189 1.08
2026/27 195 208 194 1.07

Places offered

195

in 2026/27

Named first choice

208

289 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

93.3%

194 of 208

Offers to families outside the council

2%

3 of 195 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

1,063

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,002

94.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

61

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 Wingfield 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 Wingfield Academy reported 61 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.3% 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Wingfield Academy from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 845 places 777 on roll 2014/15 845 places 765 on roll 2015/16 845 places 740 on roll 2016/17 845 places 733 on roll 2017/18 845 places 692 on roll 2018/19 845 places 743 on roll 2020/21 975 places 869 on roll 2021/22 975 places 937 on roll 2022/23 1,060 places 982 on roll 2023/24 1,060 places 986 on roll 2024/25 1,063 places 1,002 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
Rotherham

Postcode S61 4AU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 139992).

Other contested secondary schools in Rotherham

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.