School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Patrick's RC High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 29 families who named St Patrick's RC High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 172 and 199 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

199 first preferences for 172 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Patrick's RC High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Patrick's RC 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 Salford 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 Salford, 14.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 56 of 395 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 Salford.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Salford 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 Patrick's RC High School 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 St Patrick's RC 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 1.44 per place 259 first choices 180 places 2016/17 1.45 per place 258 first choices 178 places 2017/18 1.63 per place 288 first choices 177 places 2018/19 1.8 per place 324 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.85 per place 327 first choices 177 places 2020/21 1.68 per place 299 first choices 178 places 2021/22 1.57 per place 278 first choices 177 places 2022/23 1.44 per place 255 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.44 per place 254 first choices 176 places 2024/25 1.49 per place 264 first choices 177 places 2025/26 1.53 per place 262 first choices 171 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 199 first choices 172 places
First preferences per place at St Patrick's RC High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 199 first preferences for 172 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Patrick's RC 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
2015/16 180 259 175 1.44
2016/17 178 258 170 1.45
2017/18 177 288 170 1.63
2018/19 180 324 179 1.8
2019/20 177 327 175 1.85
2020/21 178 299 175 1.68
2021/22 177 278 167 1.57
2022/23 177 255 171 1.44
2023/24 176 254 167 1.44
2024/25 177 264 176 1.49
2025/26 171 262 169 1.53
2026/27 172 199 170 1.16

Places offered

172

in 2026/27

Named first choice

199

445 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.4%

170 of 199

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 172 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

928

103.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

28

reported as full or beyond

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 Patrick's RC 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 St Patrick's RC High School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Patrick's RC High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 900 places 877 on roll 2010/11 900 places 895 on roll 2011/12 900 places 907 on roll 2012/13 900 places 909 on roll 2013/14 900 places 908 on roll 2014/15 900 places 905 on roll 2015/16 900 places 906 on roll 2016/17 900 places 910 on roll 2017/18 900 places 913 on roll 2018/19 900 places 917 on roll 2020/21 900 places 933 on roll 2021/22 900 places 934 on roll 2022/23 900 places 935 on roll 2023/24 900 places 932 on roll 2024/25 900 places 928 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
Salford

Postcode M30 7JJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 105986).

Other contested secondary schools in Salford

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.