School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Shireland Collegiate Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 104 families who named Shireland Collegiate Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 244 and 332 put it first.

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

1.36

first choices for every place available

332 first preferences for 244 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Shireland Collegiate Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Shireland Collegiate 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

Shireland Collegiate Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 3 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 Shireland Collegiate 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 0.97 per place 188 first choices 194 places 2016/17 1.13 per place 217 first choices 192 places 2017/18 1.15 per place 220 first choices 191 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 238 first choices 249 places 2019/20 1.15 per place 287 first choices 249 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 268 first choices 270 places 2021/22 1.04 per place 286 first choices 274 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 260 first choices 246 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 304 first choices 248 places 2024/25 1.37 per place 331 first choices 242 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 301 first choices 248 places 2026/27 1.36 per place 332 first choices 244 places
First preferences per place at Shireland Collegiate Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 332 first preferences for 244 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Shireland Collegiate Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 194 188 160 0.97
2016/17 192 217 162 1.13
2017/18 191 220 162 1.15
2018/19 249 238 210 0.96
2019/20 249 287 212 1.15
2020/21 270 268 217 0.99
2021/22 274 286 238 1.04
2022/23 246 260 196 1.06
2023/24 248 304 220 1.23
2024/25 242 331 228 1.37
2025/26 248 301 219 1.21
2026/27 244 332 228 1.36

Places offered

244

in 2026/27

Named first choice

332

714 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.7%

228 of 332

Offers to families outside the council

15%

37 of 244 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

1,250

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,291

103.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

41

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

250

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 Shireland Collegiate 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 Shireland Collegiate Academy 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 Shireland Collegiate Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,125 places 1,267 on roll 2010/11 1,150 places 1,271 on roll 2011/12 1,200 places 1,072 on roll 2012/13 1,200 places 1,104 on roll 2013/14 1,200 places 1,110 on roll 2014/15 1,200 places 1,151 on roll 2015/16 1,200 places 1,170 on roll 2016/17 1,200 places 1,175 on roll 2017/18 1,200 places 1,161 on roll 2018/19 1,200 places 1,277 on roll 2020/21 1,375 places 1,414 on roll 2021/22 1,708 places 1,491 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,550 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,515 on roll 2024/25 1,500 places 1,516 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Sandwell

Postcode B66 4ND. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135170).

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.