School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Q3 Academy Great Barr?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 22 families who named Q3 Academy Great Barr as their first choice did not get a place: 185 put it first and 163 of them were offered one.

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

22

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

185 first preferences for 199 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Q3 Academy Great Barr

There is no published appeal success rate for Q3 Academy Great Barr, 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

Q3 Academy Great Barr turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 8 of those years. In the other 4 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 Q3 Academy Great Barr, 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 1.06 per place 190 first choices 179 places 2016/17 1.11 per place 232 first choices 209 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 217 first choices 202 places 2018/19 1.08 per place 225 first choices 208 places 2019/20 1.07 per place 223 first choices 209 places 2020/21 1.07 per place 228 first choices 214 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 202 first choices 205 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 222 first choices 209 places 2023/24 0.91 per place 192 first choices 212 places 2024/25 1.09 per place 237 first choices 218 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 197 first choices 204 places 2026/27 0.93 per place 185 first choices 199 places
First preferences per place at Q3 Academy Great Barr. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 185 first preferences for 199 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Q3 Academy Great Barr, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 179 190 138 1.06
2016/17 209 232 173 1.11
2017/18 202 217 167 1.07
2018/19 208 225 167 1.08
2019/20 209 223 152 1.07
2020/21 214 228 180 1.07
2021/22 205 202 163 0.99
2022/23 209 222 179 1.06
2023/24 212 192 164 0.91
2024/25 218 237 181 1.09
2025/26 204 197 171 0.97
2026/27 199 185 163 0.93

Places offered

199

in 2026/27

Named first choice

185

496 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.1%

163 of 185

Offers to families outside the council

12%

23 of 199 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

950

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,075

113.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

125

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

200

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 Q3 Academy Great Barr 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 Q3 Academy Great Barr 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 Q3 Academy Great Barr from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,150 places 1,012 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 1,073 on roll 2011/12 1,100 places 1,107 on roll 2012/13 1,150 places 1,109 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 1,087 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 1,095 on roll 2015/16 1,150 places 1,055 on roll 2016/17 1,150 places 1,054 on roll 2017/18 1,150 places 1,076 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 1,092 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 1,136 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,167 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,181 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,167 on roll 2024/25 1,150 places 1,157 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
Sandwell

Postcode B43 7SD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135449).

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.