School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Oasis Academy Don Valley?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 14 families who named Oasis Academy Don Valley as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 148 and 153 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Sheffield actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 9 years of official figures.

1.03

first choices for every place available

153 first preferences for 148 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Oasis Academy Don Valley

There is no published appeal success rate for Oasis Academy Don Valley, 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

Oasis Academy Don Valley turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 9 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 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 Oasis Academy Don Valley, 2018/19 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 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 2018/19 0.82 per place 86 first choices 105 places 2019/20 0.78 per place 93 first choices 120 places 2020/21 0.99 per place 129 first choices 130 places 2021/22 1.18 per place 149 first choices 126 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 175 first choices 149 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 180 first choices 158 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 185 first choices 147 places 2025/26 1.12 per place 168 first choices 150 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 153 first choices 148 places
First preferences per place at Oasis Academy Don Valley. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 153 first preferences for 148 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Oasis Academy Don Valley, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2018/19 105 86 86 0.82
2019/20 120 93 93 0.78
2020/21 130 129 116 0.99
2021/22 126 149 119 1.18
2022/23 149 175 135 1.17
2023/24 158 180 146 1.14
2024/25 147 185 142 1.26
2025/26 150 168 142 1.12
2026/27 148 153 139 1.03

Places offered

148

in 2026/27

Named first choice

153

254 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.8%

139 of 153

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 148 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

1,118

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,102

98.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

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 Oasis Academy Don Valley 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 Oasis Academy Don Valley reported 16 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.6% 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, 2015/16 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Oasis Academy Don Valley from 2015/16 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2015/16 420 places 113 on roll 2016/17 420 places 171 on roll 2017/18 420 places 241 on roll 2018/19 1,170 places 403 on roll 2020/21 1,170 places 744 on roll 2021/22 1,170 places 915 on roll 2022/23 1,170 places 1,056 on roll 2023/24 1,170 places 1,078 on roll 2024/25 1,118 places 1,102 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 S9 3TY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140394).

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.