School admission appeals in Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees heard 38 school admission appeals in 2026, and 12 of them were upheld. The figures below come from the Department for Education and cover every state-funded school in the authority — they describe Stockton-on-Tees as a whole, not any single school.
Over the last three years the Stockton-on-Tees success rate has run 7.6 percentage points higher than the England average of 19.4%.
of appeals heard in Stockton-on-Tees were upheld
50 of 185 appeals heard in 2024–2026
2026 at a glance
Appeals lodged
55
by parents in Stockton-on-Tees
Appeals heard by a panel
38
69% of those lodged
Appeals upheld
12
31.6% of those heard
England, same year
18.5%
6,414 of 34,711 heard
If your child is going into Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, read this first
73.2% of the primary appeals heard in Stockton-on-Tees were infant class size appeals. These are a different kind of appeal with a much narrower test. A panel can only uphold one if the admission arrangements were unlawful, they were applied incorrectly, or the decision to refuse was one no reasonable authority would have made. How much your child wants the place, or how strong the school is, cannot come into it.
In Stockton-on-Tees, 6.7% of infant class size appeals were upheld (2 of 30 appeals heard in 2024–2026) against 9.4% across England. That is far lower than other appeals, and it is the single most important thing to establish before you spend time on a case.
The three grounds one can be upheld on, and how to tell if yours is even an infant class size case →
What counts as grounds in Stockton-on-Tees
The rules are national, so this part does not vary by council: a panel works through two fixed stages, and the Stockton-on-Tees rate above tells you nothing about which arguments it can act on. Most appeals fail because the case put to the panel answers neither stage.
- Infant class size
- A mistake in how the decision was made
- Distance and catchment
- Siblings
- Faith and religious criteria
- Medical and social need
- Special educational needs without an EHC plan
- A late application
- In-year admissions
- Grammar schools and the 11-plus
- Sixth form places
- Twins and multiple births
Which appeals succeed in Stockton-on-Tees
Secondary and primary appeals are judged on different tests, and the gap between them is usually wide. Pooling three years gives a steadier picture than any single year.
Vertical marker shows the England figure for the same phase.
View as a table
| Phase | Heard | Upheld | Rate | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary | 144 | 44 | 30.6% | 20.1% |
| Primary | 41 | 6 | 14.6% | 17.1% |
| Infant class size | 30 | 2 | 6.7% | 9.4% |
Infant class size appeals are counted within the primary figures, not added to them.
Appeals in Stockton-on-Tees, 2016–2026
View as a table
| Year | Heard | Upheld | Stockton-on-Tees | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 61 | 17 | 27.9% | 22.3% |
| 2017 | 82 | 20 | 24.4% | 21.8% |
| 2018 | 69 | 20 | 29% | 21.8% |
| 2019 | 133 | 70 | 52.6% | 22.2% |
| 2020 | 92 | 18 | 19.6% | 21.2% |
| 2021 | 94 | 22 | 23.4% | 19% |
| 2022 | 142 | 18 | 12.7% | 20.1% |
| 2023 | 56 | 23 | 41.1% | 19.8% |
| 2024 | 57 | 18 | 31.6% | 20% |
| 2025 | 90 | 20 | 22.2% | 19.4% |
| 2026 | 38 | 12 | 31.6% | 18.5% |
How Stockton-on-Tees compares
Success rate ranking
35 of 151
English councils, ranked on the pooled 3-year success rate, LAs with 10+ appeals heard. Position 1 is the highest rate.
Appeal volume ranking
130 of 151
by number of appeals heard over the same period — 185 in total.
Success rates vary enormously between councils, from under 5% to over 50%. Some of that is real difference in how panels and admission authorities operate; some of it reflects which schools are oversubscribed and how many hopeless cases get lodged. A high local rate is not a prediction about your appeal.
Schools in Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees has 73 state-funded mainstream schools — 60 primary and 13 secondary. The largest concentrations are in Stockton-on-Tees, Billingham, Yarm and Middlesbrough.
What we can't tell you
Nobody publishes appeal outcomes school by school — the Department for Education collects returns from individual schools but only releases them added up to council level. Any site claiming to know your school's appeal odds is guessing. What matters far more than a local average is whether your particular grounds are ones a panel is allowed to act on.
Where places are hardest to get
What is published, school by school, is how many families applied and how many got in. These are the Stockton-on-Tees schools with the most first choices for each place available in 2026/27 — the places where refusals, and so appeals, are concentrated. High demand does not mean an appeal is more likely to succeed; it means more families are refused.
See all 7 secondary and 18 primary schools in Stockton-on-Tees →
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ingleby Manor Free School | 145 | 188 | 1.30 |
| Egglescliffe School | 224 | 272 | 1.21 |
| Our Lady & St. Bede Catholic Academy | 194 | 201 | 1.04 |
| St Michael's Catholic Academy | 170 | 175 | 1.03 |
| Ian Ramsey Church of England Academy | 229 | 217 | 0.95 |
| The Grangefield Academy | 195 | 185 | 0.95 |
| St Patrick's Catholic College, A Voluntary Catholic Academy | 109 | 99 | 0.91 |
| School | Places | First choices | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardwick Green Primary Academy | 29 | 38 | 1.31 |
| Wynyard Church of England Primary School | 59 | 73 | 1.24 |
| Crooksbarn Primary School | 45 | 51 | 1.13 |
| St Francis of Assisi Church of England Primary School | 60 | 64 | 1.07 |
| St Gregory's Catholic Academy | 30 | 32 | 1.07 |
| Layfield Primary School | 27 | 28 | 1.04 |
| St Joseph's Catholic Academy | 37 | 38 | 1.03 |
| Egglescliffe Church of England Primary School | 29 | 29 | 1 |
| Mill Lane Primary School | 26 | 26 | 1 |
| Oxbridge Lane Primary School | 25 | 25 | 1 |
Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27.