School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Benedict's Catholic School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 74 families who named St Benedict's Catholic School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 167 and 239 put it first.

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

1.43

first choices for every place available

239 first preferences for 167 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Benedict's Catholic School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Benedict's Catholic 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 Benedict's Catholic 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 St Benedict's Catholic 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 1.1 per place 65 first choices 59 places 2016/17 1.01 per place 152 first choices 150 places 2017/18 0.94 per place 132 first choices 141 places 2018/19 0.87 per place 115 first choices 132 places 2019/20 0.96 per place 142 first choices 148 places 2020/21 0.91 per place 136 first choices 149 places 2021/22 0.8 per place 127 first choices 159 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 202 first choices 173 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 169 first choices 165 places 2024/25 1.17 per place 198 first choices 169 places 2025/26 1.45 per place 232 first choices 160 places 2026/27 1.43 per place 239 first choices 167 places
First preferences per place at St Benedict's Catholic School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 239 first preferences for 167 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Benedict's Catholic 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 59 65 59 1.1
2016/17 150 152 148 1.01
2017/18 141 132 130 0.94
2018/19 132 115 114 0.87
2019/20 148 142 133 0.96
2020/21 149 136 136 0.91
2021/22 159 127 127 0.8
2022/23 173 202 167 1.17
2023/24 165 169 149 1.02
2024/25 169 198 159 1.17
2025/26 160 232 157 1.45
2026/27 167 239 165 1.43

Places offered

167

in 2026/27

Named first choice

239

419 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

69%

165 of 239

Offers to families outside the council

8%

14 of 167 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 124861.

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

815

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

825

101.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

10

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

175

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 Benedict's Catholic 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 Benedict's Catholic School was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Benedict's Catholic School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 606 places 594 on roll 2010/11 606 places 629 on roll 2011/12 606 places 626 on roll 2012/13 618 places 612 on roll 2013/14 720 places 668 on roll 2014/15 720 places 716 on roll 2015/16 680 places 702 on roll 2016/17 990 places 844 on roll 2017/18 990 places 849 on roll 2018/19 1,141 places 820 on roll 2020/21 990 places 920 on roll 2021/22 990 places 955 on roll 2022/23 990 places 950 on roll 2023/24 990 places 969 on roll 2024/25 990 places 970 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 IP32 6RH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149285).

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.