School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Oasis Academy Sholing?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 33 families who named Oasis Academy Sholing as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 209 and 225 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Southampton actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 8 years of official figures.

1.08

first choices for every place available

225 first preferences for 209 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Oasis Academy Sholing

There is no published appeal success rate for Oasis Academy Sholing, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Southampton 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 Southampton, 27.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 69 of 249 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 Southampton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Southampton 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

Oasis Academy Sholing turned first-choice families away in 2 of the last 8 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 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 Oasis Academy Sholing, 2019/20 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 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2019/20 0.71 per place 147 first choices 207 places 2020/21 0.8 per place 163 first choices 204 places 2021/22 0.88 per place 179 first choices 204 places 2022/23 0.98 per place 197 first choices 202 places 2023/24 0.92 per place 189 first choices 206 places 2024/25 0.93 per place 189 first choices 204 places 2025/26 0.77 per place 154 first choices 201 places 2026/27 1.08 per place 225 first choices 209 places
First preferences per place at Oasis Academy Sholing. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 225 first preferences for 209 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Oasis Academy Sholing, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2019/20 207 147 144 0.71
2020/21 204 163 162 0.8
2021/22 204 179 170 0.88
2022/23 202 197 171 0.98
2023/24 206 189 179 0.92
2024/25 204 189 189 0.93
2025/26 201 154 154 0.77
2026/27 209 225 192 1.08

Places offered

209

in 2026/27

Named first choice

225

412 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.3%

192 of 225

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 209 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,027

97.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

23

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 Oasis Academy Sholing 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 Oasis Academy Sholing reported 23 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.8% 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, 2018/19 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Oasis Academy Sholing from 2018/19 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 18/19 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2018/19 1,050 places 944 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 1,002 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 1,020 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,036 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,038 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,027 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
Southampton

Postcode SO19 8PH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146284).

Other contested secondary schools in Southampton

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.