School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community)?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 5 families who named St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community) as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 49 and 54 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

54 first preferences for 49 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community)

There is no published appeal success rate for St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community), or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Shropshire 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 Shropshire, 26.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 70 of 266 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 Shropshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Shropshire 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

St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community) 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 St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community), 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 0.96 per place 26 first choices 27 places 2016/17 0.87 per place 20 first choices 23 places 2017/18 1.03 per place 31 first choices 30 places 2018/19 1 per place 41 first choices 41 places 2019/20 0.98 per place 45 first choices 46 places 2020/21 0.89 per place 34 first choices 38 places 2021/22 0.97 per place 56 first choices 58 places 2022/23 1.09 per place 47 first choices 43 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 69 first choices 62 places 2024/25 1.26 per place 63 first choices 50 places 2025/26 1 per place 46 first choices 46 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 54 first choices 49 places
First preferences per place at St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community). Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 54 first preferences for 49 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community), 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 27 26 26 0.96
2016/17 23 20 20 0.87
2017/18 30 31 30 1.03
2018/19 41 41 41 1
2019/20 46 45 45 0.98
2020/21 38 34 34 0.89
2021/22 58 56 56 0.97
2022/23 43 47 43 1.09
2023/24 62 69 61 1.11
2024/25 50 63 50 1.26
2025/26 46 46 46 1
2026/27 49 54 49 1.1

Places offered

49

in 2026/27

Named first choice

54

138 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.7%

49 of 54

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 49 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 123575.

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

660

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

687

104.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

27

reported as full or beyond

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 St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community) 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 St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community) was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Martins School (3-16 Learning Community) from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 350 700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 541 places 363 on roll 2010/11 541 places 324 on roll 2011/12 541 places 317 on roll 2012/13 660 places 467 on roll 2013/14 660 places 471 on roll 2014/15 660 places 468 on roll 2015/16 660 places 497 on roll 2016/17 660 places 475 on roll 2017/18 660 places 509 on roll 2018/19 660 places 553 on roll 2020/21 660 places 592 on roll 2021/22 660 places 621 on roll 2022/23 660 places 649 on roll 2023/24 660 places 681 on roll 2024/25 660 places 687 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
Shropshire

Postcode SY10 7BD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 143142).

Other contested secondary schools in Shropshire

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.