School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at King Edward VI CEVC School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 14 families who named King Edward VI CEVC School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 225 and 226 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Suffolk actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 11 years of official figures.

1

first choices for every place available

226 first preferences for 225 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at King Edward VI CEVC School

There is no published appeal success rate for King Edward VI CEVC 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

King Edward VI CEVC School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 11 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at King Edward VI CEVC School, 2016/17 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 16/17 18/19 20/21 22/23 24/25 26/27 2016/17 1 per place 214 first choices 213 places 2017/18 1.12 per place 241 first choices 215 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 231 first choices 239 places 2019/20 1.27 per place 295 first choices 233 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 268 first choices 234 places 2021/22 1.23 per place 281 first choices 228 places 2022/23 0.9 per place 194 first choices 215 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 262 first choices 236 places 2024/25 1.25 per place 296 first choices 237 places 2025/26 0.87 per place 205 first choices 236 places 2026/27 1 per place 226 first choices 225 places
First preferences per place at King Edward VI CEVC School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 226 first preferences for 225 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at King Edward VI CEVC School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2016/17 213 214 211 1
2017/18 215 241 215 1.12
2018/19 239 231 210 0.97
2019/20 233 295 232 1.27
2020/21 234 268 232 1.15
2021/22 228 281 225 1.23
2022/23 215 194 194 0.9
2023/24 236 262 229 1.11
2024/25 237 296 229 1.25
2025/26 236 205 203 0.87
2026/27 225 226 212 1

Places offered

225

in 2026/27

Named first choice

226

412 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

93.8%

212 of 226

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 225 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

1,575

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,198

76.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

377

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 King Edward VI CEVC 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 King Edward VI CEVC School reported 377 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 76.1% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at King Edward VI CEVC School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,407 places 1,393 on roll 2010/11 1,407 places 1,394 on roll 2011/12 1,407 places 1,391 on roll 2012/13 1,421 places 1,404 on roll 2013/14 1,476 places 1,398 on roll 2014/15 1,476 places 1,365 on roll 2015/16 1,476 places 1,319 on roll 2016/17 1,689 places 1,656 on roll 2017/18 1,689 places 1,573 on roll 2018/19 1,689 places 1,512 on roll 2020/21 1,689 places 1,177 on roll 2021/22 1,689 places 1,193 on roll 2022/23 1,689 places 1,201 on roll 2023/24 1,575 places 1,195 on roll 2024/25 1,575 places 1,198 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 controlled school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Suffolk

Postcode IP33 3BH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 124856).

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.