School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ecclesfield School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 19 families who named Ecclesfield School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 364 and 370 put it first.

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

1.02

first choices for every place available

370 first preferences for 364 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ecclesfield School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ecclesfield 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 Sheffield 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 Sheffield, 26.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 181 of 672 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 Sheffield.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Sheffield 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

Ecclesfield School turned first-choice families away in 5 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 Ecclesfield 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 1.36 per place 472 first choices 347 places 2016/17 1.34 per place 470 first choices 350 places 2017/18 1.13 per place 395 first choices 350 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 345 first choices 349 places 2019/20 0.82 per place 285 first choices 348 places 2020/21 0.93 per place 333 first choices 360 places 2021/22 0.94 per place 304 first choices 322 places 2022/23 0.89 per place 319 first choices 358 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 336 first choices 349 places 2024/25 0.93 per place 319 first choices 344 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 379 first choices 350 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 370 first choices 364 places
First preferences per place at Ecclesfield School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 370 first preferences for 364 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ecclesfield School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 347 472 346 1.36
2016/17 350 470 350 1.34
2017/18 350 395 343 1.13
2018/19 349 345 331 0.99
2019/20 348 285 285 0.82
2020/21 360 333 329 0.93
2021/22 322 304 303 0.94
2022/23 358 319 319 0.89
2023/24 349 336 333 0.96
2024/25 344 319 319 0.93
2025/26 350 379 342 1.08
2026/27 364 370 351 1.02

Places offered

364

in 2026/27

Named first choice

370

631 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

94.9%

351 of 370

Offers to families outside the council

2%

9 of 364 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 140809.

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

1,750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,709

97.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

41

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 Ecclesfield 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 Ecclesfield School reported 41 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.7% 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ecclesfield School from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 1,750 places 1,723 on roll 2014/15 1,750 places 1,754 on roll 2015/16 1,750 places 1,741 on roll 2016/17 1,750 places 1,720 on roll 2017/18 1,750 places 1,700 on roll 2018/19 1,750 places 1,685 on roll 2020/21 1,750 places 1,682 on roll 2021/22 1,750 places 1,690 on roll 2022/23 1,750 places 1,727 on roll 2023/24 1,750 places 1,715 on roll 2024/25 1,750 places 1,709 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
Sheffield

Postcode S35 9WD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145191).

Other contested secondary schools in Sheffield

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.