School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at King's Leadership Academy Warrington?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 62 families who named King's Leadership Academy Warrington as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 165 and 226 put it first.

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

1.37

first choices for every place available

226 first preferences for 165 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at King's Leadership Academy Warrington

There is no published appeal success rate for King's Leadership Academy Warrington, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Warrington 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 Warrington, 28.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 88 of 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 Warrington.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Warrington 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

King's Leadership Academy Warrington turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at King's Leadership Academy Warrington, 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 1.31 per place 157 first choices 120 places 2016/17 1.46 per place 175 first choices 120 places 2017/18 1.6 per place 192 first choices 120 places 2018/19 1.35 per place 175 first choices 130 places 2019/20 1.4 per place 202 first choices 144 places 2020/21 1.22 per place 183 first choices 150 places 2021/22 1.44 per place 230 first choices 160 places 2022/23 1.51 per place 240 first choices 159 places 2023/24 1.35 per place 223 first choices 165 places 2024/25 1.33 per place 219 first choices 165 places 2025/26 1.29 per place 211 first choices 164 places 2026/27 1.37 per place 226 first choices 165 places
First preferences per place at King's Leadership Academy Warrington. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 226 first preferences for 165 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at King's Leadership Academy Warrington, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 157 116 1.31
2016/17 120 175 119 1.46
2017/18 120 192 117 1.6
2018/19 130 175 126 1.35
2019/20 144 202 144 1.4
2020/21 150 183 148 1.22
2021/22 160 230 160 1.44
2022/23 159 240 159 1.51
2023/24 165 223 165 1.35
2024/25 165 219 165 1.33
2025/26 164 211 162 1.29
2026/27 165 226 164 1.37

Places offered

165

in 2026/27

Named first choice

226

420 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

72.6%

164 of 226

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 165 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

765

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

807

105.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

42

reported as full or beyond

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 King's Leadership Academy Warrington 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 King's Leadership Academy Warrington 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at King's Leadership Academy Warrington from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 840 places 48 on roll 2013/14 840 places 148 on roll 2014/15 840 places 266 on roll 2015/16 840 places 386 on roll 2016/17 840 places 496 on roll 2017/18 874 places 603 on roll 2018/19 840 places 680 on roll 2020/21 840 places 735 on roll 2021/22 840 places 724 on roll 2022/23 840 places 757 on roll 2023/24 750 places 786 on roll 2024/25 765 places 807 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Warrington

Postcode WA1 4PF. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138562).

Other contested secondary schools in Warrington

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.