School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Maghull High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 40 families who named Maghull High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 219 and 248 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

248 first preferences for 219 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Maghull High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Maghull 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

Maghull High School turned first-choice families away in 6 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 1 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 Maghull High School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 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 0.84 per place 110 first choices 131 places 2016/17 0.7 per place 86 first choices 123 places 2017/18 0.71 per place 97 first choices 137 places 2018/19 0.79 per place 121 first choices 154 places 2019/20 0.82 per place 151 first choices 185 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 205 first choices 207 places 2021/22 0.84 per place 155 first choices 185 places 2022/23 1.26 per place 259 first choices 205 places 2023/24 1.49 per place 307 first choices 206 places 2024/25 1.35 per place 272 first choices 202 places 2025/26 1.38 per place 275 first choices 199 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 248 first choices 219 places
First preferences per place at Maghull High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 248 first preferences for 219 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Maghull 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
2015/16 131 110 109 0.84
2016/17 123 86 85 0.7
2017/18 137 97 97 0.71
2018/19 154 121 121 0.79
2019/20 185 151 140 0.82
2020/21 207 205 182 0.99
2021/22 185 155 149 0.84
2022/23 205 259 174 1.26
2023/24 206 307 197 1.49
2024/25 202 272 189 1.35
2025/26 199 275 195 1.38
2026/27 219 248 208 1.13

Places offered

219

in 2026/27

Named first choice

248

668 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

83.9%

208 of 248

Offers to families outside the council

10%

22 of 219 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,004

95.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

46

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

299

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 Maghull 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 Maghull High School reported 46 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.6% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Maghull High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 700 1,400 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,349 places 1,208 on roll 2012/13 1,349 places 1,154 on roll 2013/14 1,349 places 1,122 on roll 2014/15 1,349 places 1,065 on roll 2015/16 1,349 places 972 on roll 2016/17 1,349 places 919 on roll 2017/18 1,349 places 845 on roll 2018/19 1,349 places 874 on roll 2020/21 1,349 places 958 on roll 2021/22 1,349 places 1,007 on roll 2022/23 1,349 places 1,077 on roll 2023/24 1,349 places 1,089 on roll 2024/25 1,349 places 1,097 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 converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Sefton

Postcode L31 7AW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137520).

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.