School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Aldridge School - A Science College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 28 families who named Aldridge School - A Science College as their first choice did not get a place: 214 put it first and 186 of them were offered one.

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

28

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

214 first preferences for 259 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Aldridge School - A Science College

There is no published appeal success rate for Aldridge School - A Science College, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Walsall 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 Walsall, 17.2% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 182 of 1,059 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 Walsall.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Walsall 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

Aldridge School - A Science College turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 6 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 Aldridge School - A Science College, 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 0.74 per place 189 first choices 255 places 2016/17 0.87 per place 218 first choices 251 places 2017/18 0.74 per place 189 first choices 256 places 2018/19 0.83 per place 221 first choices 265 places 2019/20 0.86 per place 230 first choices 266 places 2020/21 1 per place 267 first choices 266 places 2021/22 0.83 per place 216 first choices 260 places 2022/23 0.89 per place 240 first choices 269 places 2023/24 0.95 per place 261 first choices 274 places 2024/25 0.78 per place 218 first choices 280 places 2025/26 0.79 per place 207 first choices 262 places 2026/27 0.83 per place 214 first choices 259 places
First preferences per place at Aldridge School - A Science College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 214 first preferences for 259 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Aldridge School - A Science College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 255 189 172 0.74
2016/17 251 218 186 0.87
2017/18 256 189 166 0.74
2018/19 265 221 201 0.83
2019/20 266 230 197 0.86
2020/21 266 267 217 1
2021/22 260 216 196 0.83
2022/23 269 240 213 0.89
2023/24 274 261 216 0.95
2024/25 280 218 199 0.78
2025/26 262 207 188 0.79
2026/27 259 214 186 0.83

Places offered

259

in 2026/27

Named first choice

214

812 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.9%

186 of 214

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 259 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

1,390

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,375

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

15

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

210

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 Aldridge School - A Science College 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 Aldridge School - A Science College reported 15 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.9% 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 Aldridge School - A Science College from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,489 places 1,486 on roll 2012/13 1,489 places 1,471 on roll 2013/14 1,489 places 1,463 on roll 2014/15 1,489 places 1,467 on roll 2015/16 1,463 places 1,463 on roll 2016/17 1,463 places 1,504 on roll 2017/18 1,463 places 1,507 on roll 2018/19 1,463 places 1,490 on roll 2020/21 1,620 places 1,559 on roll 2021/22 1,489 places 1,576 on roll 2022/23 1,539 places 1,603 on roll 2023/24 1,539 places 1,590 on roll 2024/25 1,600 places 1,584 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
Walsall

Postcode WS9 0BG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137974).

Other contested secondary schools in Walsall

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.