School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 81 families who named Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 159 and 228 put it first.

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

1.43

first choices for every place available

228 first preferences for 159 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Churston Ferrers Grammar School 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 Torbay 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 Torbay, 17.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 41 of 229 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 Torbay.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Torbay 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

Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy 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 Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy, 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 1.37 per place 186 first choices 136 places 2016/17 1.33 per place 189 first choices 142 places 2017/18 1.32 per place 208 first choices 157 places 2018/19 1.52 per place 227 first choices 149 places 2019/20 1.43 per place 211 first choices 148 places 2020/21 1.35 per place 200 first choices 148 places 2021/22 1.76 per place 262 first choices 149 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 182 first choices 149 places 2023/24 1.34 per place 200 first choices 149 places 2024/25 1.21 per place 181 first choices 150 places 2025/26 1.38 per place 218 first choices 158 places 2026/27 1.43 per place 228 first choices 159 places
First preferences per place at Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 228 first preferences for 159 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 136 186 130 1.37
2016/17 142 189 140 1.33
2017/18 157 208 155 1.32
2018/19 149 227 146 1.52
2019/20 148 211 148 1.43
2020/21 148 200 148 1.35
2021/22 149 262 149 1.76
2022/23 149 182 146 1.22
2023/24 149 200 140 1.34
2024/25 150 181 133 1.21
2025/26 158 218 142 1.38
2026/27 159 228 147 1.43

Places offered

159

in 2026/27

Named first choice

228

438 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

64.5%

147 of 228

Offers to families outside the council

19%

31 of 159 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

754

100.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

4

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

232

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 Churston Ferrers Grammar School 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 Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 950 places 930 on roll 2011/12 884 places 952 on roll 2012/13 968 places 969 on roll 2013/14 950 places 961 on roll 2014/15 1,028 places 957 on roll 2015/16 1,055 places 975 on roll 2016/17 950 places 992 on roll 2017/18 950 places 1,009 on roll 2018/19 950 places 1,026 on roll 2020/21 950 places 1,081 on roll 2021/22 950 places 1,025 on roll 2022/23 950 places 1,030 on roll 2023/24 982 places 1,019 on roll 2024/25 982 places 1,013 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Torbay

Postcode TQ5 0LN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136388).

Other contested secondary schools in Torbay

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.