School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Holy Trinity Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 98 families who named Holy Trinity Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 203 and 281 put it first.

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

1.38

first choices for every place available

281 first preferences for 203 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Holy Trinity Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Holy Trinity Academy, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Telford and Wrekin 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 Telford and Wrekin, 24.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 88 of 359 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 Telford and Wrekin.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Telford and Wrekin 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

Holy Trinity Academy turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 11 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 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 Holy Trinity Academy, 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 0.74 per place 102 first choices 137 places 2017/18 1.06 per place 155 first choices 146 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 146 first choices 150 places 2019/20 0.91 per place 161 first choices 176 places 2020/21 0.86 per place 124 first choices 145 places 2021/22 1.23 per place 178 first choices 145 places 2022/23 0.94 per place 197 first choices 210 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 231 first choices 208 places 2024/25 1.44 per place 295 first choices 205 places 2025/26 1.35 per place 275 first choices 204 places 2026/27 1.38 per place 281 first choices 203 places
First preferences per place at Holy Trinity Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 281 first preferences for 203 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Holy Trinity Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2016/17 137 102 102 0.74
2017/18 146 155 130 1.06
2018/19 150 146 121 0.97
2019/20 176 161 147 0.91
2020/21 145 124 107 0.86
2021/22 145 178 125 1.23
2022/23 210 197 172 0.94
2023/24 208 231 168 1.11
2024/25 205 295 175 1.44
2025/26 204 275 177 1.35
2026/27 203 281 183 1.38

Places offered

203

in 2026/27

Named first choice

281

714 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.1%

183 of 281

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 203 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

1,050

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

913

87% of capacity

Unfilled places

137

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

150

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 Holy Trinity Academy 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 Holy Trinity Academy reported 137 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87% 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, 2015/16 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Holy Trinity Academy from 2015/16 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2015/16 900 places 364 on roll 2016/17 900 places 474 on roll 2017/18 900 places 573 on roll 2018/19 900 places 642 on roll 2020/21 900 places 774 on roll 2021/22 900 places 787 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 833 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 883 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 929 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 aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Telford and Wrekin

Postcode TF2 9SQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 142067).

Other contested secondary schools in Telford and Wrekin

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.