School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Handsworth Grange Community Sports College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 29 families who named Handsworth Grange Community Sports College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 204 and 231 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

231 first preferences for 204 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Handsworth Grange Community Sports College

There is no published appeal success rate for Handsworth Grange Community Sports College, 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

Handsworth Grange Community Sports College turned first-choice families away in 8 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 Handsworth Grange Community Sports College, 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 per place 203 first choices 203 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 206 first choices 204 places 2017/18 0.83 per place 167 first choices 202 places 2018/19 0.91 per place 173 first choices 190 places 2019/20 1.13 per place 232 first choices 205 places 2020/21 1.23 per place 253 first choices 206 places 2021/22 1.13 per place 217 first choices 192 places 2022/23 1.34 per place 273 first choices 204 places 2023/24 1.27 per place 260 first choices 204 places 2024/25 1.11 per place 226 first choices 203 places 2025/26 1 per place 202 first choices 202 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 231 first choices 204 places
First preferences per place at Handsworth Grange Community Sports College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 231 first preferences for 204 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Handsworth Grange Community Sports College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 203 203 189 1
2016/17 204 206 190 1.01
2017/18 202 167 167 0.83
2018/19 190 173 173 0.91
2019/20 205 232 198 1.13
2020/21 206 253 203 1.23
2021/22 192 217 188 1.13
2022/23 204 273 199 1.34
2023/24 204 260 197 1.27
2024/25 203 226 198 1.11
2025/26 202 202 194 1
2026/27 204 231 202 1.13

Places offered

204

in 2026/27

Named first choice

231

427 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

87.4%

202 of 231

Offers to families outside the council

3%

7 of 204 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

1,025

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

985

96.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

40

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 Handsworth Grange Community Sports College 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 Handsworth Grange Community Sports College reported 40 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.1% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Handsworth Grange Community Sports College from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 1,025 places 1,017 on roll 2015/16 1,025 places 1,013 on roll 2016/17 1,025 places 1,013 on roll 2017/18 1,025 places 1,014 on roll 2018/19 1,025 places 1,026 on roll 2020/21 1,025 places 1,024 on roll 2021/22 1,025 places 1,017 on roll 2022/23 1,025 places 1,011 on roll 2023/24 1,025 places 1,005 on roll 2024/25 1,025 places 985 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
Sheffield

Postcode S13 9HJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141495).

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.