School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Blessed William Howard Catholic School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 30 families who named Blessed William Howard Catholic School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 184 and 208 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

208 first preferences for 184 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Blessed William Howard Catholic School

There is no published appeal success rate for Blessed William Howard Catholic School, 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 William Howard Catholic School turned first-choice families away in 3 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 William Howard Catholic School, 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 0.96 per place 155 first choices 162 places 2016/17 0.86 per place 128 first choices 148 places 2017/18 0.93 per place 151 first choices 162 places 2018/19 0.72 per place 131 first choices 181 places 2019/20 0.79 per place 146 first choices 185 places 2020/21 0.82 per place 149 first choices 181 places 2021/22 0.89 per place 152 first choices 171 places 2022/23 0.83 per place 138 first choices 166 places 2023/24 0.87 per place 163 first choices 188 places 2024/25 1.05 per place 221 first choices 211 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 194 first choices 180 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 208 first choices 184 places
First preferences per place at Blessed William Howard Catholic School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 208 first preferences for 184 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Blessed William Howard Catholic School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 162 155 155 0.96
2016/17 148 128 128 0.86
2017/18 162 151 151 0.93
2018/19 181 131 131 0.72
2019/20 185 146 146 0.79
2020/21 181 149 149 0.82
2021/22 171 152 152 0.89
2022/23 166 138 138 0.83
2023/24 188 163 163 0.87
2024/25 211 221 195 1.05
2025/26 180 194 162 1.08
2026/27 184 208 178 1.13

Places offered

184

in 2026/27

Named first choice

208

409 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.6%

178 of 208

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 184 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 124455.

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

960

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

863

89.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

97

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

105

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 William Howard Catholic School 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 William Howard Catholic School reported 97 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.9% 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 Blessed William Howard Catholic School 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 1,065 places 976 on roll 2010/11 1,066 places 932 on roll 2011/12 1,066 places 855 on roll 2012/13 1,090 places 822 on roll 2013/14 1,107 places 803 on roll 2014/15 1,096 places 779 on roll 2015/16 1,094 places 806 on roll 2016/17 1,065 places 840 on roll 2017/18 1,065 places 848 on roll 2018/19 1,065 places 851 on roll 2020/21 1,065 places 883 on roll 2021/22 1,065 places 907 on roll 2022/23 1,065 places 912 on roll 2023/24 1,065 places 944 on roll 2024/25 1,065 places 952 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 ST17 9AB. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142193).

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.