School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Landau Forte Academy, QEMS?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 76 families who named Landau Forte Academy, QEMS as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 211 and 281 put it first.

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

1.33

first choices for every place available

281 first preferences for 211 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Landau Forte Academy, QEMS

There is no published appeal success rate for Landau Forte Academy, QEMS, 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

Landau Forte Academy, QEMS turned first-choice families away in 3 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 2 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 Landau Forte Academy, QEMS, 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 0.9 per place 128 first choices 142 places 2016/17 0.67 per place 105 first choices 156 places 2017/18 0.73 per place 114 first choices 157 places 2018/19 0.67 per place 113 first choices 168 places 2019/20 0.96 per place 160 first choices 167 places 2020/21 0.84 per place 130 first choices 154 places 2021/22 0.93 per place 183 first choices 197 places 2022/23 0.95 per place 193 first choices 204 places 2023/24 0.99 per place 211 first choices 213 places 2024/25 0.93 per place 198 first choices 214 places 2025/26 1.25 per place 307 first choices 245 places 2026/27 1.33 per place 281 first choices 211 places
First preferences per place at Landau Forte Academy, QEMS. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 281 first preferences for 211 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Landau Forte Academy, QEMS, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 142 128 128 0.9
2016/17 156 105 105 0.67
2017/18 157 114 114 0.73
2018/19 168 113 113 0.67
2019/20 167 160 137 0.96
2020/21 154 130 128 0.84
2021/22 197 183 183 0.93
2022/23 204 193 193 0.95
2023/24 213 211 209 0.99
2024/25 214 198 198 0.93
2025/26 245 307 241 1.25
2026/27 211 281 205 1.33

Places offered

211

in 2026/27

Named first choice

281

472 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73%

205 of 281

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 211 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

840

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

929

110.6% of capacity

Over its capacity by

89

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 Landau Forte Academy, QEMS 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 Landau Forte Academy, QEMS 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Landau Forte Academy, QEMS from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 860 places 744 on roll 2012/13 840 places 736 on roll 2013/14 840 places 674 on roll 2014/15 840 places 628 on roll 2015/16 840 places 644 on roll 2016/17 840 places 645 on roll 2017/18 840 places 642 on roll 2018/19 840 places 694 on roll 2020/21 840 places 783 on roll 2021/22 840 places 818 on roll 2022/23 840 places 874 on roll 2023/24 840 places 920 on roll 2024/25 840 places 929 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
Staffordshire

Postcode B79 8AH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137146).

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.