School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Catmose College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 62 families who named Catmose College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 227 and 286 put it first.

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

1.26

first choices for every place available

286 first preferences for 227 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Catmose College

There is no published appeal success rate for Catmose 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 Rutland 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 Rutland, 5.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 1 of 18 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 Rutland.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Rutland 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

Catmose College 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 Catmose 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 1.15 per place 195 first choices 170 places 2016/17 1.09 per place 221 first choices 202 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 216 first choices 201 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 223 first choices 230 places 2019/20 1.17 per place 241 first choices 206 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 232 first choices 202 places 2021/22 1.11 per place 229 first choices 206 places 2022/23 0.97 per place 228 first choices 234 places 2023/24 1.1 per place 262 first choices 238 places 2024/25 1.19 per place 278 first choices 234 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 265 first choices 233 places 2026/27 1.26 per place 286 first choices 227 places
First preferences per place at Catmose College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 286 first preferences for 227 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Catmose College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 170 195 168 1.15
2016/17 202 221 192 1.09
2017/18 201 216 196 1.07
2018/19 230 223 222 0.97
2019/20 206 241 202 1.17
2020/21 202 232 196 1.15
2021/22 206 229 200 1.11
2022/23 234 228 220 0.97
2023/24 238 262 232 1.1
2024/25 234 278 230 1.19
2025/26 233 265 227 1.14
2026/27 227 286 224 1.26

Places offered

227

in 2026/27

Named first choice

286

419 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.3%

224 of 286

Offers to families outside the council

11%

25 of 227 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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,116

93% of capacity

Unfilled places

84

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 Catmose 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 Catmose College reported 84 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 93% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Catmose College from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,004 places 773 on roll 2011/12 900 places 821 on roll 2012/13 900 places 848 on roll 2013/14 900 places 875 on roll 2014/15 900 places 884 on roll 2015/16 900 places 882 on roll 2016/17 900 places 935 on roll 2017/18 900 places 955 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 985 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,022 on roll 2021/22 1,080 places 1,016 on roll 2022/23 1,080 places 1,065 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,095 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 1,116 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
Rutland

Postcode LE15 6RP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136530).

Other contested secondary schools in Rutland

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.