School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Thomas Gainsborough School?

In 2026/27, Thomas Gainsborough School offered 271 places and 260 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.96

first choices for every place available

260 first preferences for 271 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Thomas Gainsborough School

There is no published appeal success rate for Thomas Gainsborough 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

Thomas Gainsborough School turned first-choice families away in 8 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 Thomas Gainsborough 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 0.98 per place 251 first choices 256 places 2016/17 0.97 per place 268 first choices 277 places 2017/18 1 per place 277 first choices 278 places 2018/19 1.18 per place 329 first choices 280 places 2019/20 1.21 per place 340 first choices 280 places 2020/21 1.06 per place 298 first choices 280 places 2021/22 1.09 per place 304 first choices 280 places 2022/23 1.2 per place 335 first choices 280 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 331 first choices 280 places 2024/25 1.08 per place 297 first choices 274 places 2025/26 1.08 per place 295 first choices 272 places 2026/27 0.96 per place 260 first choices 271 places
First preferences per place at Thomas Gainsborough School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 260 first preferences for 271 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Thomas Gainsborough School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 256 251 244 0.98
2016/17 277 268 267 0.97
2017/18 278 277 273 1
2018/19 280 329 275 1.18
2019/20 280 340 273 1.21
2020/21 280 298 277 1.06
2021/22 280 304 274 1.09
2022/23 280 335 279 1.2
2023/24 280 331 277 1.18
2024/25 274 297 270 1.08
2025/26 272 295 268 1.08
2026/27 271 260 260 0.96

Places offered

271

in 2026/27

Named first choice

260

394 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

260 of 260

Offers to families outside the council

8%

21 of 268 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

1,400

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,356

96.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

44

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

380

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 Thomas Gainsborough 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 Thomas Gainsborough School reported 44 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.9% 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, 2014/15 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Thomas Gainsborough School from 2014/15 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2014/15 1,489 places 1,239 on roll 2015/16 1,780 places 1,274 on roll 2016/17 1,400 places 1,393 on roll 2017/18 1,400 places 1,484 on roll 2018/19 1,400 places 1,510 on roll 2020/21 1,780 places 1,569 on roll 2021/22 1,780 places 1,576 on roll 2022/23 1,780 places 1,565 on roll 2023/24 1,780 places 1,578 on roll 2024/25 1,780 places 1,588 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 CO10 0NH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 141639).

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.