School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wellington School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 92 families who named Wellington School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 260 and 328 put it first.

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

1.26

first choices for every place available

328 first preferences for 260 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wellington School

There is no published appeal success rate for Wellington 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

Wellington School turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 2 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 Wellington 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 0.91 per place 240 first choices 265 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 235 first choices 263 places 2017/18 1.11 per place 302 first choices 271 places 2018/19 1.16 per place 316 first choices 272 places 2019/20 1.34 per place 358 first choices 268 places 2020/21 1.12 per place 303 first choices 270 places 2021/22 0.92 per place 242 first choices 264 places 2022/23 1.43 per place 371 first choices 260 places 2023/24 1.4 per place 364 first choices 260 places 2024/25 1.24 per place 322 first choices 260 places 2025/26 1.37 per place 356 first choices 260 places 2026/27 1.26 per place 328 first choices 260 places
First preferences per place at Wellington School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 328 first preferences for 260 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wellington School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 265 240 203 0.91
2016/17 263 235 219 0.89
2017/18 271 302 236 1.11
2018/19 272 316 240 1.16
2019/20 268 358 236 1.34
2020/21 270 303 231 1.12
2021/22 264 242 172 0.92
2022/23 260 371 231 1.43
2023/24 260 364 236 1.4
2024/25 260 322 231 1.24
2025/26 260 356 238 1.37
2026/27 260 328 236 1.26

Places offered

260

in 2026/27

Named first choice

328

1,253 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

72%

236 of 328

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 260 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

1,305

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,315

100.8% of capacity

Over its capacity by

10

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

190

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 Wellington 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 Wellington School 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 Wellington School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,350 places 1,351 on roll 2011/12 1,516 places 1,347 on roll 2012/13 1,497 places 1,334 on roll 2013/14 1,440 places 1,362 on roll 2014/15 1,440 places 1,352 on roll 2015/16 1,440 places 1,389 on roll 2016/17 1,440 places 1,389 on roll 2017/18 1,440 places 1,379 on roll 2018/19 1,491 places 1,394 on roll 2020/21 1,421 places 1,444 on roll 2021/22 1,440 places 1,454 on roll 2022/23 1,421 places 1,498 on roll 2023/24 1,503 places 1,501 on roll 2024/25 1,495 places 1,493 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 WA15 7RH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136377).

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.