School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Silverdale School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 29 families who named Silverdale School as their first choice did not get a place: 219 put it first and 190 of them were offered one.

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

29

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

219 first preferences for 239 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Silverdale School

There is no published appeal success rate for Silverdale 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

Silverdale School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 5 of those years. In the other 3 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 Silverdale 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 1.12 per place 201 first choices 180 places 2016/17 0.92 per place 220 first choices 240 places 2017/18 1.26 per place 224 first choices 178 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 231 first choices 239 places 2019/20 0.9 per place 215 first choices 238 places 2020/21 1.34 per place 241 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.4 per place 240 first choices 171 places 2022/23 1.38 per place 248 first choices 180 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 230 first choices 240 places 2024/25 0.92 per place 220 first choices 239 places 2025/26 0.88 per place 212 first choices 240 places 2026/27 0.92 per place 219 first choices 239 places
First preferences per place at Silverdale School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 219 first preferences for 239 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Silverdale School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 180 201 167 1.12
2016/17 240 220 206 0.92
2017/18 178 224 169 1.26
2018/19 239 231 213 0.97
2019/20 238 215 201 0.9
2020/21 180 241 173 1.34
2021/22 171 240 157 1.4
2022/23 180 248 165 1.38
2023/24 240 230 199 0.96
2024/25 239 220 205 0.92
2025/26 240 212 190 0.88
2026/27 239 219 190 0.92

Places offered

239

in 2026/27

Named first choice

219

859 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.8%

190 of 219

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 239 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

1,200

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,024

85.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

176

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

472

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 Silverdale 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 Silverdale School reported 176 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 85.3% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Silverdale School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,276 places 1,295 on roll 2013/14 1,276 places 1,287 on roll 2014/15 1,276 places 1,277 on roll 2015/16 1,276 places 1,260 on roll 2016/17 1,276 places 1,296 on roll 2017/18 1,276 places 1,287 on roll 2018/19 1,396 places 1,378 on roll 2020/21 1,396 places 1,449 on roll 2021/22 1,396 places 1,429 on roll 2022/23 1,396 places 1,453 on roll 2023/24 1,672 places 1,459 on roll 2024/25 1,672 places 1,448 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 S11 9QH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 139167).

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.