School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Claydon High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 33 families who named Claydon High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 148 and 179 put it first.

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

1.21

first choices for every place available

179 first preferences for 148 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Claydon High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Claydon 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 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

Claydon High 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 Claydon 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 1.02 per place 150 first choices 147 places 2016/17 1.11 per place 166 first choices 149 places 2017/18 0.95 per place 130 first choices 137 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 143 first choices 145 places 2019/20 1.33 per place 207 first choices 156 places 2020/21 1.25 per place 193 first choices 155 places 2021/22 1.05 per place 162 first choices 155 places 2022/23 1.3 per place 201 first choices 155 places 2023/24 1.25 per place 194 first choices 155 places 2024/25 1.15 per place 171 first choices 149 places 2025/26 1.13 per place 170 first choices 151 places 2026/27 1.21 per place 179 first choices 148 places
First preferences per place at Claydon High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 179 first preferences for 148 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Claydon 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
2015/16 147 150 135 1.02
2016/17 149 166 145 1.11
2017/18 137 130 130 0.95
2018/19 145 143 133 0.99
2019/20 156 207 145 1.33
2020/21 155 193 151 1.25
2021/22 155 162 148 1.05
2022/23 155 201 154 1.3
2023/24 155 194 154 1.25
2024/25 149 171 145 1.15
2025/26 151 170 141 1.13
2026/27 148 179 146 1.21

Places offered

148

in 2026/27

Named first choice

179

326 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.6%

146 of 179

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 148 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 124846.

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

818

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

773

94.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

45

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 Claydon 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 Claydon High School reported 45 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.5% 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 Claydon 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 2009/10 808 places 735 on roll 2010/11 725 places 696 on roll 2011/12 725 places 678 on roll 2012/13 792 places 665 on roll 2013/14 792 places 676 on roll 2014/15 812 places 666 on roll 2015/16 816 places 673 on roll 2016/17 818 places 681 on roll 2017/18 818 places 715 on roll 2018/19 745 places 719 on roll 2020/21 818 places 761 on roll 2021/22 818 places 768 on roll 2022/23 818 places 772 on roll 2023/24 818 places 770 on roll 2024/25 818 places 773 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
Suffolk

Postcode IP6 0EG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144214).

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.