School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chipping Sodbury School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 7 families who named Chipping Sodbury School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 144 and 148 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.

1.03

first choices for every place available

148 first preferences for 144 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chipping Sodbury School

There is no published appeal success rate for Chipping Sodbury 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

Chipping Sodbury School turned first-choice families away in 4 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 3 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 Chipping Sodbury 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 0.99 per place 122 first choices 123 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 135 first choices 144 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 150 first choices 153 places 2018/19 1.11 per place 159 first choices 143 places 2019/20 0.89 per place 102 first choices 115 places 2020/21 0.86 per place 95 first choices 110 places 2021/22 0.85 per place 123 first choices 145 places 2022/23 0.85 per place 110 first choices 129 places 2023/24 0.96 per place 135 first choices 141 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 175 first choices 148 places 2025/26 1 per place 136 first choices 136 places 2026/27 1.03 per place 148 first choices 144 places
First preferences per place at Chipping Sodbury School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 148 first preferences for 144 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chipping Sodbury School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 123 122 122 0.99
2016/17 144 135 135 0.94
2017/18 153 150 150 0.98
2018/19 143 159 133 1.11
2019/20 115 102 102 0.89
2020/21 110 95 95 0.86
2021/22 145 123 123 0.85
2022/23 129 110 110 0.85
2023/24 141 135 117 0.96
2024/25 148 175 147 1.18
2025/26 136 136 136 1
2026/27 144 148 141 1.03

Places offered

144

in 2026/27

Named first choice

148

335 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.3%

141 of 148

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 144 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 109324.

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

997

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

705

70.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

292

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

150

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 Chipping Sodbury 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 Chipping Sodbury School reported 292 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 70.7% 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 Chipping Sodbury School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,120 places 924 on roll 2010/11 1,166 places 912 on roll 2011/12 1,166 places 858 on roll 2012/13 1,166 places 794 on roll 2013/14 1,166 places 705 on roll 2014/15 1,166 places 681 on roll 2015/16 1,147 places 695 on roll 2016/17 1,139 places 708 on roll 2017/18 1,147 places 734 on roll 2018/19 1,147 places 761 on roll 2020/21 1,147 places 722 on roll 2021/22 1,147 places 736 on roll 2022/23 1,147 places 742 on roll 2023/24 1,147 places 727 on roll 2024/25 1,147 places 764 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
South Gloucestershire

Postcode BS37 6EW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 148295).

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.