School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sir Bernard Lovell Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 34 families who named Sir Bernard Lovell Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 236 and 255 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in South Gloucestershire actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 11 years of official figures.

1.08

first choices for every place available

255 first preferences for 236 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sir Bernard Lovell Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Sir Bernard Lovell Academy, 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

Sir Bernard Lovell Academy turned first-choice families away in 3 of the last 11 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Sir Bernard Lovell Academy, 2016/17 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 16/17 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 2016/17 0.89 per place 157 first choices 177 places 2017/18 0.7 per place 137 first choices 197 places 2018/19 0.79 per place 158 first choices 200 places 2019/20 0.72 per place 156 first choices 216 places 2020/21 0.91 per place 198 first choices 217 places 2021/22 0.95 per place 226 first choices 238 places 2022/23 0.99 per place 203 first choices 205 places 2023/24 1.09 per place 254 first choices 233 places 2024/25 0.92 per place 242 first choices 264 places 2025/26 1.16 per place 279 first choices 240 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 255 first choices 236 places
First preferences per place at Sir Bernard Lovell Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 255 first preferences for 236 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sir Bernard Lovell Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2016/17 177 157 157 0.89
2017/18 197 137 137 0.7
2018/19 200 158 158 0.79
2019/20 216 156 156 0.72
2020/21 217 198 198 0.91
2021/22 238 226 226 0.95
2022/23 205 203 190 0.99
2023/24 233 254 224 1.09
2024/25 264 242 228 0.92
2025/26 240 279 238 1.16
2026/27 236 255 221 1.08

Places offered

236

in 2026/27

Named first choice

255

412 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.7%

221 of 255

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 236 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

1,259

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,118

88.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

141

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 Sir Bernard Lovell Academy 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 Sir Bernard Lovell Academy reported 141 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 88.8% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Sir Bernard Lovell Academy from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 1,457 places 1,163 on roll 2015/16 1,457 places 1,084 on roll 2016/17 1,457 places 1,024 on roll 2017/18 1,409 places 981 on roll 2018/19 1,409 places 959 on roll 2020/21 1,409 places 1,091 on roll 2021/22 1,409 places 1,137 on roll 2022/23 1,409 places 1,181 on roll 2023/24 1,409 places 1,229 on roll 2024/25 1,409 places 1,247 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
South Gloucestershire

Postcode BS30 8TS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141665).

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.