School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Brimsham Green School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 11 families who named Brimsham Green School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 197 and 205 put it first.

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

1.04

first choices for every place available

205 first preferences for 197 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Brimsham Green School

There is no published appeal success rate for Brimsham Green 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 South Gloucestershire 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 South Gloucestershire, 25.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 76 of 302 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 South Gloucestershire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not South Gloucestershire 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

Brimsham Green School turned first-choice families away in 1 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 Brimsham Green 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 per place 137 first choices 137 places 2016/17 0.99 per place 133 first choices 135 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 142 first choices 145 places 2018/19 0.86 per place 145 first choices 169 places 2019/20 0.86 per place 147 first choices 171 places 2020/21 0.85 per place 126 first choices 148 places 2021/22 0.78 per place 116 first choices 149 places 2022/23 0.89 per place 170 first choices 190 places 2023/24 0.81 per place 190 first choices 235 places 2024/25 0.84 per place 147 first choices 175 places 2025/26 0.96 per place 190 first choices 198 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 205 first choices 197 places
First preferences per place at Brimsham Green School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 205 first preferences for 197 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Brimsham Green School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 137 137 137 1
2016/17 135 133 133 0.99
2017/18 145 142 142 0.98
2018/19 169 145 145 0.86
2019/20 171 147 147 0.86
2020/21 148 126 126 0.85
2021/22 149 116 116 0.78
2022/23 190 170 170 0.89
2023/24 235 190 190 0.81
2024/25 175 147 147 0.84
2025/26 198 190 190 0.96
2026/27 197 205 194 1.04

Places offered

197

in 2026/27

Named first choice

205

394 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

94.6%

194 of 205

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 197 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

1,020

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

937

91.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

83

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

185

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 Brimsham Green 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 Brimsham Green School reported 83 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91.9% 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 Brimsham Green School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,235 places 1,146 on roll 2010/11 1,235 places 1,193 on roll 2011/12 1,243 places 1,209 on roll 2012/13 1,243 places 1,194 on roll 2013/14 1,241 places 1,140 on roll 2014/15 1,235 places 1,046 on roll 2015/16 1,235 places 984 on roll 2016/17 1,235 places 948 on roll 2017/18 1,235 places 922 on roll 2018/19 1,235 places 908 on roll 2020/21 1,235 places 898 on roll 2021/22 1,205 places 906 on roll 2022/23 1,205 places 958 on roll 2023/24 1,205 places 1,017 on roll 2024/25 1,205 places 1,054 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
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
South Gloucestershire

Postcode BS37 7LB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 109319).

Other contested secondary schools in South Gloucestershire

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.