School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Harton Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 32 families who named Harton Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 266 and 290 put it first.

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

1.09

first choices for every place available

290 first preferences for 266 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Harton Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Harton 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 Tyneside 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 Tyneside, 27.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 59 of 217 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 Tyneside.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not South Tyneside 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

Harton Academy 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 Harton Academy, 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 1.31 per place 347 first choices 264 places 2016/17 1.23 per place 326 first choices 266 places 2017/18 1.22 per place 327 first choices 267 places 2018/19 1.3 per place 353 first choices 271 places 2019/20 1.18 per place 313 first choices 266 places 2020/21 1.18 per place 311 first choices 264 places 2021/22 1.34 per place 359 first choices 268 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 295 first choices 262 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 314 first choices 265 places 2024/25 1.03 per place 300 first choices 290 places 2025/26 1.13 per place 304 first choices 268 places 2026/27 1.09 per place 290 first choices 266 places
First preferences per place at Harton Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 290 first preferences for 266 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Harton Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 264 347 261 1.31
2016/17 266 326 250 1.23
2017/18 267 327 260 1.22
2018/19 271 353 269 1.3
2019/20 266 313 256 1.18
2020/21 264 311 257 1.18
2021/22 268 359 262 1.34
2022/23 262 295 251 1.13
2023/24 265 314 262 1.18
2024/25 290 300 284 1.03
2025/26 268 304 265 1.13
2026/27 266 290 258 1.09

Places offered

266

in 2026/27

Named first choice

290

601 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89%

258 of 290

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 266 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 108726.

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

1,355

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,343

99.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

12

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

266

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 Harton 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 Harton Academy reported 12 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.1% 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 Harton Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,355 places 1,355 on roll 2010/11 1,621 places 1,480 on roll 2011/12 1,621 places 1,605 on roll 2012/13 1,626 places 1,589 on roll 2013/14 1,626 places 1,600 on roll 2014/15 1,626 places 1,647 on roll 2015/16 1,621 places 1,628 on roll 2016/17 1,621 places 1,610 on roll 2017/18 1,625 places 1,584 on roll 2018/19 1,625 places 1,605 on roll 2020/21 1,621 places 1,647 on roll 2021/22 1,621 places 1,643 on roll 2022/23 1,621 places 1,616 on roll 2023/24 1,621 places 1,647 on roll 2024/25 1,621 places 1,645 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 Tyneside

Postcode NE34 6DL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144204).

Other contested secondary schools in South Tyneside

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.