School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Stretford High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 25 families who named Stretford High School as their first choice did not get a place: 176 put it first and 151 of them were offered one.

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

25

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

176 first preferences for 196 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Stretford High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Stretford High 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

Stretford High School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 8 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 Stretford High 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 0.78 per place 122 first choices 156 places 2016/17 0.83 per place 142 first choices 171 places 2017/18 0.78 per place 145 first choices 185 places 2018/19 0.76 per place 144 first choices 190 places 2019/20 0.81 per place 154 first choices 191 places 2020/21 0.81 per place 153 first choices 189 places 2021/22 0.63 per place 119 first choices 189 places 2022/23 0.96 per place 183 first choices 190 places 2023/24 1.05 per place 210 first choices 200 places 2024/25 0.92 per place 189 first choices 205 places 2025/26 0.93 per place 180 first choices 194 places 2026/27 0.9 per place 176 first choices 196 places
First preferences per place at Stretford High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 176 first preferences for 196 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Stretford High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 156 122 92 0.78
2016/17 171 142 112 0.83
2017/18 185 145 124 0.78
2018/19 190 144 124 0.76
2019/20 191 154 143 0.81
2020/21 189 153 141 0.81
2021/22 189 119 114 0.63
2022/23 190 183 147 0.96
2023/24 200 210 166 1.05
2024/25 205 189 160 0.92
2025/26 194 180 149 0.93
2026/27 196 176 151 0.9

Places offered

196

in 2026/27

Named first choice

176

464 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.8%

151 of 176

Offers to families outside the council

3%

6 of 196 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

1,026

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

976

95.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

50

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 Stretford High 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 Stretford High School reported 50 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 95.1% 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 Stretford High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 780 places 718 on roll 2010/11 780 places 751 on roll 2011/12 824 places 762 on roll 2012/13 954 places 777 on roll 2013/14 950 places 789 on roll 2014/15 933 places 797 on roll 2015/16 933 places 804 on roll 2016/17 933 places 820 on roll 2017/18 973 places 852 on roll 2018/19 973 places 880 on roll 2020/21 1,014 places 943 on roll 2021/22 1,030 places 953 on roll 2022/23 1,030 places 940 on roll 2023/24 1,026 places 954 on roll 2024/25 1,026 places 976 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
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Trafford

Postcode M32 0XA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 106370).

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.