School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Yewlands Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 3 families who named Yewlands Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 172 put it first and 169 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.

3

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

172 first preferences for 179 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Yewlands Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Yewlands Academy, 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

Yewlands Academy 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 Yewlands Academy, 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 0.84 per place 182 first choices 217 places 2016/17 0.78 per place 169 first choices 216 places 2017/18 0.83 per place 148 first choices 178 places 2018/19 0.91 per place 157 first choices 173 places 2019/20 1.14 per place 207 first choices 182 places 2020/21 1.33 per place 237 first choices 178 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 195 first choices 201 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 219 first choices 207 places 2023/24 1.03 per place 214 first choices 208 places 2024/25 1.14 per place 201 first choices 177 places 2025/26 0.91 per place 160 first choices 176 places 2026/27 0.96 per place 172 first choices 179 places
First preferences per place at Yewlands Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 172 first preferences for 179 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Yewlands Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 217 182 182 0.84
2016/17 216 169 169 0.78
2017/18 178 148 148 0.83
2018/19 173 157 157 0.91
2019/20 182 207 173 1.14
2020/21 178 237 178 1.33
2021/22 201 195 195 0.97
2022/23 207 219 203 1.06
2023/24 208 214 201 1.03
2024/25 177 201 175 1.14
2025/26 176 160 160 0.91
2026/27 179 172 169 0.96

Places offered

179

in 2026/27

Named first choice

172

311 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

98.3%

169 of 172

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 179 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 137400.

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

1,033

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

926

89.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

107

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 Yewlands Academy 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 Yewlands Academy reported 107 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.6% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Yewlands Academy from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 900 places 871 on roll 2012/13 900 places 873 on roll 2013/14 900 places 852 on roll 2014/15 900 places 787 on roll 2015/16 900 places 842 on roll 2016/17 900 places 869 on roll 2017/18 900 places 855 on roll 2018/19 900 places 855 on roll 2020/21 900 places 874 on roll 2021/22 900 places 861 on roll 2022/23 900 places 899 on roll 2023/24 900 places 910 on roll 2024/25 1,033 places 926 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 8NN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145943).

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.