School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Holy Family Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 107 families who named Holy Family Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 147 and 250 put it first.

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

1.70

first choices for every place available

250 first preferences for 147 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Holy Family Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Holy Family Catholic High School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Sefton 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 Sefton, 21.8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 137 of 628 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 Sefton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Sefton 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

Holy Family Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Holy Family Catholic High School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.6 1.3 1.9 2.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.34 per place 209 first choices 156 places 2016/17 0.95 per place 147 first choices 155 places 2017/18 1.37 per place 213 first choices 155 places 2018/19 1.51 per place 234 first choices 155 places 2019/20 1.56 per place 244 first choices 156 places 2020/21 2.05 per place 313 first choices 153 places 2021/22 1.45 per place 223 first choices 154 places 2022/23 1.39 per place 210 first choices 151 places 2023/24 1.34 per place 219 first choices 164 places 2024/25 1.46 per place 240 first choices 164 places 2025/26 1.73 per place 264 first choices 153 places 2026/27 1.7 per place 250 first choices 147 places
First preferences per place at Holy Family Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 250 first preferences for 147 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Holy Family Catholic High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 156 209 152 1.34
2016/17 155 147 147 0.95
2017/18 155 213 152 1.37
2018/19 155 234 149 1.51
2019/20 156 244 154 1.56
2020/21 153 313 151 2.05
2021/22 154 223 152 1.45
2022/23 151 210 145 1.39
2023/24 164 219 153 1.34
2024/25 164 240 161 1.46
2025/26 153 264 150 1.73
2026/27 147 250 143 1.7

Places offered

147

in 2026/27

Named first choice

250

619 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

57.2%

143 of 250

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 147 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

851

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

862

101.3% of capacity

Over its capacity by

11

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

182

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 Holy Family Catholic High School 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 Holy Family Catholic High School 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 Holy Family Catholic High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 940 places 780 on roll 2010/11 876 places 838 on roll 2011/12 876 places 819 on roll 2012/13 869 places 779 on roll 2013/14 869 places 731 on roll 2014/15 869 places 723 on roll 2015/16 869 places 802 on roll 2016/17 898 places 830 on roll 2017/18 898 places 830 on roll 2018/19 898 places 882 on roll 2020/21 898 places 938 on roll 2021/22 898 places 939 on roll 2022/23 898 places 946 on roll 2023/24 1,009 places 1,009 on roll 2024/25 1,033 places 1,042 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Sefton

Postcode L23 4UL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 104962).

Other contested secondary schools in Sefton

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.