School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Alban's Catholic High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 13 families who named St Alban's Catholic High School as their first choice did not get a place: 142 put it first and 129 of them were offered one.

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

13

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

142 first preferences for 164 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Alban's Catholic High School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Alban's Catholic 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

St Alban's Catholic High School turned first-choice families away in 4 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 3 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at St Alban's Catholic 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 1.05 per place 173 first choices 164 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 156 first choices 167 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 163 first choices 168 places 2018/19 0.87 per place 146 first choices 168 places 2019/20 0.64 per place 106 first choices 165 places 2020/21 0.7 per place 118 first choices 168 places 2021/22 0.71 per place 110 first choices 156 places 2022/23 0.8 per place 115 first choices 144 places 2023/24 0.83 per place 122 first choices 147 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 165 first choices 169 places 2025/26 0.97 per place 167 first choices 172 places 2026/27 0.87 per place 142 first choices 164 places
First preferences per place at St Alban's Catholic High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 142 first preferences for 164 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Alban's Catholic 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
2015/16 164 173 150 1.05
2016/17 167 156 144 0.93
2017/18 168 163 145 0.97
2018/19 168 146 134 0.87
2019/20 165 106 106 0.64
2020/21 168 118 118 0.7
2021/22 156 110 110 0.71
2022/23 144 115 115 0.8
2023/24 147 122 122 0.83
2024/25 169 165 139 0.98
2025/26 172 167 140 0.97
2026/27 164 142 129 0.87

Places offered

164

in 2026/27

Named first choice

142

390 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

90.8%

129 of 142

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 164 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

862

95.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

38

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

161

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 St Alban's Catholic 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 St Alban's Catholic High School reported 38 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.8% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Alban's Catholic High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 991 places 1,021 on roll 2012/13 991 places 1,001 on roll 2013/14 991 places 1,008 on roll 2014/15 1,027 places 1,012 on roll 2015/16 1,017 places 1,031 on roll 2016/17 1,033 places 1,006 on roll 2017/18 1,033 places 983 on roll 2018/19 1,020 places 950 on roll 2020/21 1,013 places 930 on roll 2021/22 1,013 places 956 on roll 2022/23 1,047 places 1,024 on roll 2023/24 1,013 places 1,020 on roll 2024/25 1,061 places 992 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 IP4 3NJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137849).

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.