School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Friary School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 61 families who named The Friary School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 217 and 268 put it first.

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

1.24

first choices for every place available

268 first preferences for 217 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Friary School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Friary 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

The Friary School turned first-choice families away in 10 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 The Friary 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 0.95 per place 198 first choices 208 places 2016/17 0.87 per place 171 first choices 197 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 229 first choices 214 places 2018/19 1.39 per place 292 first choices 210 places 2019/20 1.1 per place 229 first choices 208 places 2020/21 1.09 per place 229 first choices 210 places 2021/22 1.11 per place 231 first choices 209 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 264 first choices 216 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 241 first choices 217 places 2024/25 1.2 per place 251 first choices 209 places 2025/26 1.23 per place 264 first choices 215 places 2026/27 1.24 per place 268 first choices 217 places
First preferences per place at The Friary School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 268 first preferences for 217 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Friary School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 208 198 198 0.95
2016/17 197 171 171 0.87
2017/18 214 229 193 1.07
2018/19 210 292 198 1.39
2019/20 208 229 200 1.1
2020/21 210 229 193 1.09
2021/22 209 231 196 1.11
2022/23 216 264 204 1.22
2023/24 217 241 179 1.11
2024/25 209 251 199 1.2
2025/26 215 264 206 1.23
2026/27 217 268 207 1.24

Places offered

217

in 2026/27

Named first choice

268

637 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

77.2%

207 of 268

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 217 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 124422.

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

1,034

98.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 The Friary 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 The Friary School reported 16 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 The Friary School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,250 places 1,281 on roll 2010/11 1,256 places 1,293 on roll 2011/12 1,256 places 1,262 on roll 2012/13 1,245 places 1,216 on roll 2013/14 1,241 places 1,188 on roll 2014/15 1,262 places 1,190 on roll 2015/16 1,283 places 1,188 on roll 2016/17 1,256 places 1,119 on roll 2017/18 1,214 places 1,099 on roll 2018/19 1,226 places 1,107 on roll 2020/21 1,250 places 1,207 on roll 2021/22 1,250 places 1,221 on roll 2022/23 1,250 places 1,216 on roll 2023/24 1,250 places 1,223 on roll 2024/25 1,250 places 1,218 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Staffordshire

Postcode WS13 7EW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 146907).

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.