School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Debenham High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 6 families who named Debenham High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 141 and 146 put it first.

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

1.04

first choices for every place available

146 first preferences for 141 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Debenham High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Debenham 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

Debenham High School turned first-choice families away in 7 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 Debenham 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 1.12 per place 140 first choices 125 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 133 first choices 125 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 132 first choices 135 places 2018/19 1.12 per place 151 first choices 135 places 2019/20 1.25 per place 175 first choices 140 places 2020/21 1.12 per place 140 first choices 125 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 134 first choices 135 places 2022/23 0.99 per place 134 first choices 135 places 2023/24 0.95 per place 128 first choices 135 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 131 first choices 133 places 2025/26 1.15 per place 155 first choices 135 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 146 first choices 141 places
First preferences per place at Debenham High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 146 first preferences for 141 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Debenham 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
2015/16 125 140 124 1.12
2016/17 125 133 125 1.06
2017/18 135 132 131 0.98
2018/19 135 151 134 1.12
2019/20 140 175 139 1.25
2020/21 125 140 124 1.12
2021/22 135 134 133 0.99
2022/23 135 134 131 0.99
2023/24 135 128 128 0.95
2024/25 133 131 130 0.98
2025/26 135 155 133 1.15
2026/27 141 146 140 1.04

Places offered

141

in 2026/27

Named first choice

146

231 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

95.9%

140 of 146

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 141 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

722

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

694

96.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

28

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 Debenham 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 Debenham High School reported 28 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.1% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Debenham High School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 500 places 619 on roll 2011/12 625 places 626 on roll 2012/13 625 places 639 on roll 2013/14 654 places 647 on roll 2014/15 654 places 646 on roll 2015/16 654 places 668 on roll 2016/17 654 places 679 on roll 2017/18 654 places 676 on roll 2018/19 722 places 672 on roll 2020/21 722 places 670 on roll 2021/22 722 places 679 on roll 2022/23 722 places 681 on roll 2023/24 722 places 688 on roll 2024/25 722 places 694 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Suffolk

Postcode IP14 6BL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136416).

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.