School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 28 families who named St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 209 and 230 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

230 first preferences for 209 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington

There is no published appeal success rate for St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Sunderland 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 Sunderland, 77.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 189 of 244 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 Sunderland.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Sunderland 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 Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington, 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 1.21 per place 251 first choices 207 places 2016/17 1.27 per place 262 first choices 207 places 2017/18 1.18 per place 255 first choices 217 places 2018/19 1.24 per place 271 first choices 218 places 2019/20 1.24 per place 306 first choices 247 places 2020/21 1.23 per place 325 first choices 265 places 2021/22 1.53 per place 322 first choices 210 places 2022/23 1.33 per place 271 first choices 204 places 2023/24 1.24 per place 256 first choices 206 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 239 first choices 225 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 242 first choices 206 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 230 first choices 209 places
First preferences per place at St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 230 first preferences for 209 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 207 251 206 1.21
2016/17 207 262 206 1.27
2017/18 217 255 216 1.18
2018/19 218 271 216 1.24
2019/20 247 306 246 1.24
2020/21 265 325 265 1.23
2021/22 210 322 208 1.53
2022/23 204 271 203 1.33
2023/24 206 256 201 1.24
2024/25 225 239 222 1.06
2025/26 206 242 205 1.17
2026/27 209 230 202 1.1

Places offered

209

in 2026/27

Named first choice

230

462 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

87.8%

202 of 230

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 209 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 108870.

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

1,199

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,183

98.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

497

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 Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington 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 Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington reported 16 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.7% 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 St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Washington 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 1,547 places 1,601 on roll 2010/11 1,547 places 1,649 on roll 2011/12 1,547 places 1,622 on roll 2012/13 1,547 places 1,606 on roll 2013/14 1,547 places 1,522 on roll 2014/15 1,547 places 1,556 on roll 2015/16 1,547 places 1,613 on roll 2016/17 1,547 places 1,570 on roll 2017/18 1,547 places 1,574 on roll 2018/19 1,547 places 1,568 on roll 2020/21 1,547 places 1,625 on roll 2021/22 1,547 places 1,640 on roll 2022/23 1,547 places 1,631 on roll 2023/24 1,547 places 1,608 on roll 2024/25 1,696 places 1,572 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
Sunderland

Postcode NE38 8AF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147142).

Other contested secondary schools in Sunderland

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.