School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Cheadle Hulme High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 158 families who named Cheadle Hulme High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 262 and 415 put it first.

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

1.58

first choices for every place available

415 first preferences for 262 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Cheadle Hulme High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Cheadle Hulme High 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 Stockport 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 Stockport, 18.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 149 of 802 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 Stockport.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Stockport 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

Cheadle Hulme High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Cheadle Hulme High 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 1.65 per place 425 first choices 258 places 2016/17 1.89 per place 481 first choices 254 places 2017/18 1.83 per place 483 first choices 264 places 2018/19 1.84 per place 481 first choices 261 places 2019/20 1.53 per place 405 first choices 265 places 2020/21 1.4 per place 372 first choices 265 places 2021/22 1.56 per place 407 first choices 261 places 2022/23 1.44 per place 379 first choices 263 places 2023/24 1.57 per place 441 first choices 280 places 2024/25 1.53 per place 439 first choices 287 places 2025/26 1.64 per place 448 first choices 274 places 2026/27 1.58 per place 415 first choices 262 places
First preferences per place at Cheadle Hulme High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 415 first preferences for 262 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Cheadle Hulme High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 258 425 244 1.65
2016/17 254 481 252 1.89
2017/18 264 483 255 1.83
2018/19 261 481 256 1.84
2019/20 265 405 256 1.53
2020/21 265 372 246 1.4
2021/22 261 407 250 1.56
2022/23 263 379 250 1.44
2023/24 280 441 273 1.57
2024/25 287 439 280 1.53
2025/26 274 448 263 1.64
2026/27 262 415 257 1.58

Places offered

262

in 2026/27

Named first choice

415

1,460 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

61.9%

257 of 415

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 262 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

1,425

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,381

96.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

44

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Cheadle Hulme High 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 Cheadle Hulme High School reported 44 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.9% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Cheadle Hulme High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,348 places 1,306 on roll 2012/13 1,348 places 1,324 on roll 2013/14 1,314 places 1,385 on roll 2014/15 1,556 places 1,488 on roll 2015/16 1,526 places 1,580 on roll 2016/17 1,555 places 1,614 on roll 2017/18 1,563 places 1,655 on roll 2018/19 1,568 places 1,655 on roll 2020/21 1,650 places 1,662 on roll 2021/22 1,650 places 1,671 on roll 2022/23 1,650 places 1,663 on roll 2023/24 1,650 places 1,669 on roll 2024/25 1,725 places 1,688 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
Stockport

Postcode SK8 7JY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137843).

Other contested secondary schools in Stockport

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.