School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 39 families who named St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 238 and 253 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

253 first preferences for 238 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall

There is no published appeal success rate for St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall, 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

St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 10 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 St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall, 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 1.04 per place 244 first choices 235 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 254 first choices 239 places 2017/18 1.06 per place 254 first choices 240 places 2018/19 0.92 per place 221 first choices 239 places 2019/20 1.1 per place 265 first choices 242 places 2020/21 1.02 per place 246 first choices 241 places 2021/22 1 per place 238 first choices 238 places 2022/23 1.27 per place 303 first choices 238 places 2023/24 1.21 per place 278 first choices 230 places 2024/25 1.09 per place 258 first choices 236 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 266 first choices 227 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 253 first choices 238 places
First preferences per place at St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 253 first preferences for 238 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 235 244 207 1.04
2016/17 239 254 220 1.06
2017/18 240 254 210 1.06
2018/19 239 221 199 0.92
2019/20 242 265 208 1.1
2020/21 241 246 205 1.02
2021/22 238 238 199 1
2022/23 238 303 209 1.27
2023/24 230 278 208 1.21
2024/25 236 258 203 1.09
2025/26 227 266 203 1.17
2026/27 238 253 214 1.06

Places offered

238

in 2026/27

Named first choice

253

557 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.6%

214 of 253

Offers to families outside the council

32%

77 of 238 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

1,129

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,214

107.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

85

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

310

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 St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall 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 St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,475 places 1,468 on roll 2010/11 1,475 places 1,480 on roll 2011/12 1,475 places 1,444 on roll 2012/13 1,475 places 1,465 on roll 2013/14 1,475 places 1,433 on roll 2014/15 1,475 places 1,448 on roll 2015/16 1,475 places 1,466 on roll 2016/17 1,475 places 1,447 on roll 2017/18 1,475 places 1,456 on roll 2018/19 1,475 places 1,509 on roll 2020/21 1,600 places 1,476 on roll 2021/22 1,475 places 1,479 on roll 2022/23 1,475 places 1,487 on roll 2023/24 1,439 places 1,491 on roll 2024/25 1,439 places 1,456 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Walsall

Postcode WV14 7BL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 104259).

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.