School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Joseph's Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 51 families who named St Joseph's Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 158 and 183 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

183 first preferences for 158 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Joseph's Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Joseph's Catholic High 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 Slough 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 Slough, 6.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 88 of 1,349 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 Slough.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Slough 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 Joseph's Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 10 of those years. In the other 1 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 St Joseph's Catholic High 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 0.79 per place 103 first choices 131 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 125 first choices 135 places 2017/18 1.03 per place 165 first choices 160 places 2018/19 1.07 per place 175 first choices 164 places 2019/20 1.43 per place 214 first choices 150 places 2020/21 1.78 per place 233 first choices 131 places 2021/22 1.4 per place 188 first choices 134 places 2022/23 1.25 per place 200 first choices 160 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 174 first choices 152 places 2024/25 1.15 per place 180 first choices 157 places 2025/26 1.06 per place 170 first choices 160 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 183 first choices 158 places
First preferences per place at St Joseph's Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 183 first preferences for 158 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Joseph's Catholic High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 131 103 100 0.79
2016/17 135 125 107 0.93
2017/18 160 165 130 1.03
2018/19 164 175 139 1.07
2019/20 150 214 126 1.43
2020/21 131 233 117 1.78
2021/22 134 188 106 1.4
2022/23 160 200 136 1.25
2023/24 152 174 129 1.14
2024/25 157 180 131 1.15
2025/26 160 170 133 1.06
2026/27 158 183 132 1.16

Places offered

158

in 2026/27

Named first choice

183

433 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

72.1%

132 of 183

Offers to families outside the council

7%

11 of 158 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 110087.

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

803

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

783

97.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

20

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 Joseph's Catholic High 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 St Joseph's Catholic High School reported 20 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.5% 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 St Joseph's Catholic High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 683 places 670 on roll 2010/11 704 places 680 on roll 2011/12 704 places 702 on roll 2012/13 730 places 692 on roll 2013/14 730 places 689 on roll 2014/15 730 places 735 on roll 2015/16 730 places 755 on roll 2016/17 864 places 804 on roll 2017/18 864 places 870 on roll 2018/19 864 places 939 on roll 2020/21 975 places 995 on roll 2021/22 975 places 979 on roll 2022/23 975 places 939 on roll 2023/24 975 places 954 on roll 2024/25 1,003 places 987 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Slough

Postcode SL2 5HW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 143803).

Other contested secondary schools in Slough

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.