School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St James' Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 32 families who named St James' Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 155 and 165 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

165 first preferences for 155 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St James' Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St James' Catholic 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

St James' Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 8 of those years. In the other 2 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 St James' Catholic 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 1.15 per place 172 first choices 149 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 163 first choices 154 places 2017/18 1.36 per place 210 first choices 154 places 2018/19 1.08 per place 171 first choices 158 places 2019/20 0.91 per place 143 first choices 157 places 2020/21 0.94 per place 151 first choices 161 places 2021/22 0.91 per place 147 first choices 162 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 181 first choices 161 places 2023/24 1.19 per place 186 first choices 156 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 162 first choices 163 places 2025/26 1.12 per place 169 first choices 151 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 165 first choices 155 places
First preferences per place at St James' Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 165 first preferences for 155 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St James' Catholic 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
2015/16 149 172 140 1.15
2016/17 154 163 139 1.06
2017/18 154 210 142 1.36
2018/19 158 171 149 1.08
2019/20 157 143 135 0.91
2020/21 161 151 140 0.94
2021/22 162 147 117 0.91
2022/23 161 181 135 1.12
2023/24 156 186 136 1.19
2024/25 163 162 136 0.99
2025/26 151 169 121 1.12
2026/27 155 165 133 1.06

Places offered

155

in 2026/27

Named first choice

165

663 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

80.6%

133 of 165

Offers to families outside the council

12%

18 of 155 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

805

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

820

101.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

15

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 St James' Catholic 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 St James' Catholic High School 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St James' Catholic High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 738 places 787 on roll 2010/11 738 places 793 on roll 2011/12 738 places 800 on roll 2012/13 738 places 812 on roll 2013/14 745 places 804 on roll 2014/15 800 places 801 on roll 2015/16 800 places 794 on roll 2016/17 800 places 800 on roll 2017/18 800 places 791 on roll 2018/19 800 places 793 on roll 2020/21 805 places 792 on roll 2021/22 805 places 804 on roll 2022/23 805 places 803 on roll 2023/24 805 places 823 on roll 2024/25 805 places 820 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Stockport

Postcode SK8 6PZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 106142).

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.