School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Mortimer Community College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 48 families who named Mortimer Community College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 239 and 269 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.

1.13

first choices for every place available

269 first preferences for 239 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Mortimer Community College

There is no published appeal success rate for Mortimer Community College, 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

Mortimer Community College turned first-choice families away in 4 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 Mortimer Community College, 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 0.57 per place 96 first choices 168 places 2016/17 0.6 per place 79 first choices 132 places 2017/18 0.5 per place 66 first choices 132 places 2018/19 0.64 per place 92 first choices 144 places 2019/20 0.67 per place 144 first choices 214 places 2020/21 0.88 per place 191 first choices 218 places 2021/22 0.73 per place 159 first choices 217 places 2022/23 1.33 per place 287 first choices 215 places 2023/24 0.89 per place 211 first choices 236 places 2024/25 1.21 per place 290 first choices 239 places 2025/26 1.24 per place 295 first choices 237 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 269 first choices 239 places
First preferences per place at Mortimer Community College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 269 first preferences for 239 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Mortimer Community College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 168 96 96 0.57
2016/17 132 79 79 0.6
2017/18 132 66 66 0.5
2018/19 144 92 92 0.64
2019/20 214 144 144 0.67
2020/21 218 191 189 0.88
2021/22 217 159 159 0.73
2022/23 215 287 199 1.33
2023/24 236 211 203 0.89
2024/25 239 290 232 1.21
2025/26 237 295 225 1.24
2026/27 239 269 221 1.13

Places offered

239

in 2026/27

Named first choice

269

567 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

82.2%

221 of 269

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 239 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

1,122

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,110

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

12

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Mortimer Community College 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 Mortimer Community College reported 12 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.9% 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 Mortimer Community College 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 1,085 places 985 on roll 2010/11 1,085 places 967 on roll 2011/12 1,085 places 896 on roll 2012/13 1,085 places 842 on roll 2013/14 1,085 places 800 on roll 2014/15 1,085 places 750 on roll 2015/16 1,085 places 744 on roll 2016/17 1,085 places 763 on roll 2017/18 1,085 places 776 on roll 2018/19 1,085 places 899 on roll 2020/21 1,090 places 1,057 on roll 2021/22 1,090 places 1,043 on roll 2022/23 1,090 places 1,079 on roll 2023/24 1,122 places 1,101 on roll 2024/25 1,122 places 1,110 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 Tyneside

Postcode NE33 4UG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 108727).

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.