School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Q3 Academy Langley?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 82 families who named Q3 Academy Langley as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 292 and 344 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Sandwell actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 10 years of official figures.

1.18

first choices for every place available

344 first preferences for 292 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Q3 Academy Langley

There is no published appeal success rate for Q3 Academy Langley, 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 Langley turned first-choice families away in every one of the 10 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 8 of those years. In the other 2 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 Langley, 2017/18 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 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2017/18 0.89 per place 212 first choices 239 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 231 first choices 240 places 2019/20 1.15 per place 275 first choices 240 places 2020/21 1.48 per place 347 first choices 234 places 2021/22 1.07 per place 313 first choices 292 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 343 first choices 295 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 345 first choices 293 places 2024/25 1.36 per place 400 first choices 295 places 2025/26 1.18 per place 345 first choices 292 places 2026/27 1.18 per place 344 first choices 292 places
First preferences per place at Q3 Academy Langley. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 344 first preferences for 292 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Q3 Academy Langley, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2017/18 239 212 187 0.89
2018/19 240 231 193 0.96
2019/20 240 275 197 1.15
2020/21 234 347 217 1.48
2021/22 292 313 261 1.07
2022/23 295 343 260 1.16
2023/24 293 345 260 1.18
2024/25 295 400 271 1.36
2025/26 292 345 271 1.18
2026/27 292 344 262 1.18

Places offered

292

in 2026/27

Named first choice

344

907 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

76.2%

262 of 344

Offers to families outside the council

2%

5 of 292 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

1,500

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,429

95.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

71

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 Q3 Academy Langley 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 Langley reported 71 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.3% 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, 2016/17 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Q3 Academy Langley from 2016/17 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 16/17 17/18 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2016/17 630 places 152 on roll 2017/18 630 places 394 on roll 2018/19 630 places 632 on roll 2020/21 1,110 places 1,110 on roll 2021/22 1,500 places 1,258 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,309 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,380 on roll 2024/25 1,500 places 1,429 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 B68 8ED. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141698).

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.