School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Bristnall Hall Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 76 families who named Bristnall Hall Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 188 and 249 put it first.

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

1.32

first choices for every place available

249 first preferences for 188 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Bristnall Hall Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Bristnall Hall 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 Sandwell 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 Sandwell, 9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 98 of 1,092 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 Sandwell.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Sandwell 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

Bristnall Hall Academy turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 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 Bristnall Hall 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 0.86 per place 161 first choices 188 places 2016/17 0.79 per place 132 first choices 168 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 168 first choices 190 places 2018/19 0.88 per place 167 first choices 189 places 2019/20 1.28 per place 242 first choices 189 places 2020/21 0.98 per place 199 first choices 203 places 2021/22 1.29 per place 263 first choices 204 places 2022/23 1.11 per place 227 first choices 205 places 2023/24 1.26 per place 246 first choices 195 places 2024/25 1.14 per place 223 first choices 195 places 2025/26 1.1 per place 222 first choices 201 places 2026/27 1.32 per place 249 first choices 188 places
First preferences per place at Bristnall Hall Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 249 first preferences for 188 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Bristnall Hall Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 188 161 160 0.86
2016/17 168 132 132 0.79
2017/18 190 168 163 0.88
2018/19 189 167 156 0.88
2019/20 189 242 174 1.28
2020/21 203 199 171 0.98
2021/22 204 263 185 1.29
2022/23 205 227 192 1.11
2023/24 195 246 184 1.26
2024/25 195 223 175 1.14
2025/26 201 222 172 1.1
2026/27 188 249 173 1.32

Places offered

188

in 2026/27

Named first choice

249

835 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

69.5%

173 of 249

Offers to families outside the council

2%

4 of 188 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

1,100

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,098

99.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

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 Bristnall Hall 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 Bristnall Hall Academy reported 2 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.8% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Bristnall Hall Academy from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,050 places 983 on roll 2013/14 1,050 places 946 on roll 2014/15 953 places 971 on roll 2015/16 953 places 981 on roll 2016/17 953 places 955 on roll 2017/18 953 places 938 on roll 2018/19 953 places 936 on roll 2020/21 953 places 975 on roll 2021/22 1,100 places 1,014 on roll 2022/23 1,100 places 1,052 on roll 2023/24 1,100 places 1,081 on roll 2024/25 1,100 places 1,098 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
Sandwell

Postcode B68 9PA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 139043).

Other contested secondary schools in Sandwell

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.