School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Priory School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 66 families who named The Priory School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 168 and 231 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

231 first preferences for 168 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Priory School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Priory 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 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

The Priory School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at The Priory 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 1.16 per place 188 first choices 162 places 2016/17 1.37 per place 228 first choices 166 places 2017/18 1.28 per place 211 first choices 165 places 2018/19 1.47 per place 238 first choices 162 places 2019/20 1.4 per place 229 first choices 163 places 2020/21 1.33 per place 220 first choices 165 places 2021/22 1.37 per place 226 first choices 165 places 2022/23 1.54 per place 257 first choices 167 places 2023/24 1.55 per place 272 first choices 176 places 2024/25 1.71 per place 287 first choices 168 places 2025/26 1.57 per place 264 first choices 168 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 231 first choices 168 places
First preferences per place at The Priory School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 231 first preferences for 168 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Priory School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 162 188 161 1.16
2016/17 166 228 161 1.37
2017/18 165 211 163 1.28
2018/19 162 238 160 1.47
2019/20 163 229 160 1.4
2020/21 165 220 161 1.33
2021/22 165 226 165 1.37
2022/23 167 257 164 1.54
2023/24 176 272 173 1.55
2024/25 168 287 168 1.71
2025/26 168 264 166 1.57
2026/27 168 231 165 1.38

Places offered

168

in 2026/27

Named first choice

231

724 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

71.4%

165 of 231

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 168 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

840

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

852

101.4% of capacity

Over its capacity by

12

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 The Priory 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 The Priory School 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Priory School from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 810 places 808 on roll 2013/14 816 places 822 on roll 2014/15 840 places 833 on roll 2015/16 840 places 843 on roll 2016/17 840 places 842 on roll 2017/18 840 places 838 on roll 2018/19 840 places 843 on roll 2020/21 840 places 844 on roll 2021/22 840 places 844 on roll 2022/23 840 places 849 on roll 2023/24 840 places 856 on roll 2024/25 840 places 852 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
Shropshire

Postcode SY3 9EE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138216).

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.