School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Chantry Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 22 families who named Chantry Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 202 and 221 put it first.

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

1.09

first choices for every place available

221 first preferences for 202 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Chantry Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Chantry Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Suffolk 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 Suffolk, 26.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 112 of 426 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 Suffolk.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Suffolk 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

Chantry Academy turned first-choice families away in 8 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 Chantry Academy, 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 0.8 per place 134 first choices 168 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 144 first choices 153 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 158 first choices 162 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 178 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 202 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.35 per place 243 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.33 per place 240 first choices 180 places 2022/23 1.08 per place 226 first choices 210 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 247 first choices 210 places 2024/25 1.22 per place 248 first choices 204 places 2025/26 1.13 per place 230 first choices 204 places 2026/27 1.09 per place 221 first choices 202 places
First preferences per place at Chantry Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 221 first preferences for 202 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Chantry Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 168 134 134 0.8
2016/17 153 144 144 0.94
2017/18 162 158 158 0.98
2018/19 180 178 172 0.99
2019/20 180 202 177 1.12
2020/21 180 243 172 1.35
2021/22 180 240 180 1.33
2022/23 210 226 206 1.08
2023/24 210 247 209 1.18
2024/25 204 248 201 1.22
2025/26 204 230 201 1.13
2026/27 202 221 199 1.09

Places offered

202

in 2026/27

Named first choice

221

331 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90%

199 of 221

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 202 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

981

93.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

69

across Years 7 to 11

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 Chantry Academy 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 Chantry Academy reported 69 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 93.4% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Chantry Academy from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,532 places 685 on roll 2013/14 1,532 places 643 on roll 2014/15 1,532 places 656 on roll 2015/16 900 places 690 on roll 2016/17 900 places 717 on roll 2017/18 900 places 787 on roll 2018/19 900 places 829 on roll 2020/21 900 places 883 on roll 2021/22 900 places 882 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 922 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 948 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 981 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
Suffolk

Postcode IP2 9LR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138373).

Other contested secondary schools in Suffolk

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.