School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Westfield School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 14 families who named Westfield School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 270 and 284 put it first.

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

1.05

first choices for every place available

284 first preferences for 270 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Westfield School

There is no published appeal success rate for Westfield 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

Westfield School turned first-choice families away in 7 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 Westfield 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 1.02 per place 274 first choices 268 places 2016/17 0.96 per place 221 first choices 231 places 2017/18 0.9 per place 219 first choices 244 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 230 first choices 233 places 2019/20 1.06 per place 279 first choices 263 places 2020/21 1.04 per place 250 first choices 240 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 253 first choices 255 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 288 first choices 263 places 2023/24 1.07 per place 287 first choices 267 places 2024/25 1.14 per place 306 first choices 268 places 2025/26 0.96 per place 285 first choices 297 places 2026/27 1.05 per place 284 first choices 270 places
First preferences per place at Westfield School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 284 first preferences for 270 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Westfield School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 268 274 265 1.02
2016/17 231 221 221 0.96
2017/18 244 219 219 0.9
2018/19 233 230 230 0.99
2019/20 263 279 257 1.06
2020/21 240 250 236 1.04
2021/22 255 253 252 0.99
2022/23 263 288 260 1.1
2023/24 267 287 265 1.07
2024/25 268 306 264 1.14
2025/26 297 285 284 0.96
2026/27 270 284 270 1.05

Places offered

270

in 2026/27

Named first choice

284

392 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.1%

270 of 284

Offers to families outside the council

3%

9 of 270 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 107135.

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

1,350

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,323

98% of capacity

Unfilled places

27

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 Westfield 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 Westfield School reported 27 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Westfield School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,350 places 1,368 on roll 2010/11 1,350 places 1,399 on roll 2011/12 1,380 places 1,425 on roll 2012/13 1,350 places 1,366 on roll 2013/14 1,350 places 1,314 on roll 2014/15 1,350 places 1,297 on roll 2015/16 1,350 places 1,294 on roll 2016/17 1,350 places 1,221 on roll 2017/18 1,350 places 1,167 on roll 2018/19 1,350 places 1,127 on roll 2020/21 1,350 places 1,143 on roll 2021/22 1,350 places 1,189 on roll 2022/23 1,350 places 1,246 on roll 2023/24 1,350 places 1,315 on roll 2024/25 1,350 places 1,323 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 S20 1HQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145562).

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.