School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at West Bromwich Collegiate Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 78 families who named West Bromwich Collegiate Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 151 and 205 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Sandwell actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 8 years of official figures.

1.36

first choices for every place available

205 first preferences for 151 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at West Bromwich Collegiate Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for West Bromwich 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

West Bromwich Collegiate Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 8 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 6 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 West Bromwich Collegiate Academy, 2019/20 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 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2019/20 0.7 per place 122 first choices 175 places 2020/21 1.39 per place 210 first choices 151 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 142 first choices 154 places 2022/23 1.18 per place 177 first choices 150 places 2023/24 1.28 per place 193 first choices 151 places 2024/25 1.21 per place 181 first choices 150 places 2025/26 1.33 per place 195 first choices 147 places 2026/27 1.36 per place 205 first choices 151 places
First preferences per place at West Bromwich Collegiate Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 205 first preferences for 151 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at West Bromwich 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
2019/20 175 122 105 0.7
2020/21 151 210 115 1.39
2021/22 154 142 103 0.92
2022/23 150 177 123 1.18
2023/24 151 193 122 1.28
2024/25 150 181 118 1.21
2025/26 147 195 120 1.33
2026/27 151 205 127 1.36

Places offered

151

in 2026/27

Named first choice

205

598 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62%

127 of 205

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 151 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

776

103.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

26

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 West Bromwich 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 West Bromwich 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, 2020/21 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at West Bromwich Collegiate Academy from 2020/21 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2020/21 750 places 332 on roll 2021/22 750 places 487 on roll 2022/23 750 places 647 on roll 2023/24 750 places 800 on roll 2024/25 750 places 776 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Sandwell

Postcode B70 7LE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147182).

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.