School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 66 families who named Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 118 and 182 put it first.

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

1.54

first choices for every place available

182 first preferences for 118 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary 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 Staffordshire 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 Staffordshire, 20.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 157 of 752 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 Staffordshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Staffordshire 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

Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy turned first-choice families away in 5 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 Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary 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 0.93 per place 133 first choices 143 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 112 first choices 126 places 2017/18 0.89 per place 116 first choices 130 places 2018/19 0.96 per place 101 first choices 105 places 2019/20 1.78 per place 121 first choices 68 places 2020/21 0.87 per place 79 first choices 91 places 2021/22 0.8 per place 76 first choices 95 places 2022/23 0.85 per place 94 first choices 110 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 144 first choices 122 places 2024/25 1.32 per place 182 first choices 138 places 2025/26 1.27 per place 153 first choices 120 places 2026/27 1.54 per place 182 first choices 118 places
First preferences per place at Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 182 first preferences for 118 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 143 133 132 0.93
2016/17 126 112 112 0.89
2017/18 130 116 116 0.89
2018/19 105 101 100 0.96
2019/20 68 121 67 1.78
2020/21 91 79 79 0.87
2021/22 95 76 76 0.8
2022/23 110 94 93 0.85
2023/24 122 144 116 1.18
2024/25 138 182 134 1.32
2025/26 120 153 117 1.27
2026/27 118 182 116 1.54

Places offered

118

in 2026/27

Named first choice

182

341 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

63.7%

116 of 182

Offers to families outside the council

37%

44 of 118 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 124459.

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

620

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

611

98.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

9

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 Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary 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 Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy reported 9 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.5% 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 Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 710 places 700 on roll 2010/11 707 places 708 on roll 2011/12 707 places 700 on roll 2012/13 710 places 701 on roll 2013/14 710 places 703 on roll 2014/15 722 places 711 on roll 2015/16 728 places 720 on roll 2016/17 730 places 709 on roll 2017/18 720 places 700 on roll 2018/19 714 places 655 on roll 2020/21 714 places 550 on roll 2021/22 620 places 533 on roll 2022/23 620 places 565 on roll 2023/24 620 places 586 on roll 2024/25 620 places 611 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Staffordshire

Postcode DE15 9SD. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146235).

Other contested secondary schools in Staffordshire

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.