School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ashton-on-Mersey School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named Ashton-on-Mersey School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 269 and 275 put it first.

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

1.02

first choices for every place available

275 first preferences for 269 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ashton-on-Mersey School

There is no published appeal success rate for Ashton-on-Mersey 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 Trafford 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 Trafford, 11.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 147 of 1,313 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 Trafford.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Trafford 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

Ashton-on-Mersey School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 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 Ashton-on-Mersey 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 1.17 per place 278 first choices 237 places 2016/17 1.03 per place 262 first choices 254 places 2017/18 1.25 per place 330 first choices 263 places 2018/19 1.14 per place 277 first choices 244 places 2019/20 1.15 per place 292 first choices 254 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 304 first choices 264 places 2021/22 0.81 per place 207 first choices 255 places 2022/23 1.24 per place 316 first choices 254 places 2023/24 1.17 per place 309 first choices 264 places 2024/25 1.25 per place 330 first choices 264 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 300 first choices 264 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 275 first choices 269 places
First preferences per place at Ashton-on-Mersey School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 275 first preferences for 269 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ashton-on-Mersey School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 237 278 207 1.17
2016/17 254 262 216 1.03
2017/18 263 330 236 1.25
2018/19 244 277 210 1.14
2019/20 254 292 230 1.15
2020/21 264 304 225 1.15
2021/22 255 207 163 0.81
2022/23 254 316 228 1.24
2023/24 264 309 226 1.17
2024/25 264 330 234 1.25
2025/26 264 300 229 1.14
2026/27 269 275 236 1.02

Places offered

269

in 2026/27

Named first choice

275

1,043 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.8%

236 of 275

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 269 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

1,333

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,330

99.8% of capacity

Unfilled places

3

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

246

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 Ashton-on-Mersey 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 Ashton-on-Mersey School reported 3 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.8% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ashton-on-Mersey School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,561 places 1,443 on roll 2012/13 1,575 places 1,451 on roll 2013/14 1,516 places 1,470 on roll 2014/15 1,516 places 1,444 on roll 2015/16 1,555 places 1,430 on roll 2016/17 1,537 places 1,432 on roll 2017/18 1,537 places 1,426 on roll 2018/19 1,537 places 1,421 on roll 2020/21 1,522 places 1,421 on roll 2021/22 1,535 places 1,412 on roll 2022/23 1,516 places 1,413 on roll 2023/24 1,543 places 1,506 on roll 2024/25 1,579 places 1,598 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
Trafford

Postcode M33 5BP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138123).

Other contested secondary schools in Trafford

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.