School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 111 families who named Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 191 and 299 put it first.

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

1.57

first choices for every place available

299 first preferences for 191 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton

There is no published appeal success rate for Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton, 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

Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 2 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 Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton, 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 160 first choices 162 places 2016/17 0.92 per place 151 first choices 164 places 2017/18 1 per place 197 first choices 197 places 2018/19 1.23 per place 250 first choices 203 places 2019/20 1.67 per place 291 first choices 174 places 2020/21 1.53 per place 271 first choices 177 places 2021/22 1.62 per place 277 first choices 171 places 2022/23 1.52 per place 268 first choices 176 places 2023/24 1.59 per place 290 first choices 182 places 2024/25 1.59 per place 290 first choices 182 places 2025/26 1.58 per place 282 first choices 179 places 2026/27 1.57 per place 299 first choices 191 places
First preferences per place at Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 299 first preferences for 191 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 162 160 144 0.99
2016/17 164 151 145 0.92
2017/18 197 197 177 1
2018/19 203 250 187 1.23
2019/20 174 291 160 1.67
2020/21 177 271 169 1.53
2021/22 171 277 162 1.62
2022/23 176 268 168 1.52
2023/24 182 290 179 1.59
2024/25 182 290 176 1.59
2025/26 179 282 177 1.58
2026/27 191 299 188 1.57

Places offered

191

in 2026/27

Named first choice

299

608 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.9%

188 of 299

Offers to families outside the council

23%

44 of 191 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

950

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,026

108% of capacity

Over its capacity by

76

reported as full or beyond

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 Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton 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 Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Saint George Catholic Voluntary Aided College Southampton from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 750 places 469 on roll 2010/11 686 places 458 on roll 2011/12 686 places 478 on roll 2012/13 639 places 525 on roll 2013/14 639 places 544 on roll 2014/15 600 places 584 on roll 2015/16 750 places 668 on roll 2016/17 750 places 716 on roll 2017/18 750 places 794 on roll 2018/19 870 places 866 on roll 2020/21 870 places 947 on roll 2021/22 870 places 995 on roll 2022/23 950 places 1,000 on roll 2023/24 950 places 1,011 on roll 2024/25 950 places 1,026 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Southampton

Postcode SO16 3DQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 116507).

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.