School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 36 families who named Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 175 and 199 put it first.

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

1.14

first choices for every place available

199 first preferences for 175 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England 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 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

Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School turned first-choice families away in 2 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England 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 0.79 per place 93 first choices 118 places 2016/17 0.74 per place 78 first choices 105 places 2017/18 0.66 per place 80 first choices 121 places 2018/19 0.73 per place 97 first choices 133 places 2019/20 0.67 per place 105 first choices 156 places 2020/21 0.82 per place 116 first choices 142 places 2021/22 0.83 per place 116 first choices 140 places 2022/23 0.84 per place 138 first choices 165 places 2023/24 0.95 per place 157 first choices 165 places 2024/25 0.89 per place 155 first choices 175 places 2025/26 1.09 per place 190 first choices 175 places 2026/27 1.14 per place 199 first choices 175 places
First preferences per place at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 199 first preferences for 175 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England 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
2015/16 118 93 93 0.79
2016/17 105 78 78 0.74
2017/18 121 80 80 0.66
2018/19 133 97 97 0.73
2019/20 156 105 105 0.67
2020/21 142 116 116 0.82
2021/22 140 116 115 0.83
2022/23 165 138 138 0.84
2023/24 165 157 153 0.95
2024/25 175 155 155 0.89
2025/26 175 190 165 1.09
2026/27 175 199 163 1.14

Places offered

175

in 2026/27

Named first choice

199

490 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.9%

163 of 199

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 175 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 133672.

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

825

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

866

105% of capacity

Over its capacity by

41

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 Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England 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 Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 825 places 770 on roll 2010/11 825 places 768 on roll 2011/12 825 places 785 on roll 2012/13 825 places 781 on roll 2013/14 825 places 747 on roll 2014/15 825 places 697 on roll 2015/16 825 places 624 on roll 2016/17 825 places 545 on roll 2017/18 825 places 507 on roll 2018/19 825 places 521 on roll 2020/21 825 places 608 on roll 2021/22 825 places 716 on roll 2022/23 825 places 803 on roll 2023/24 825 places 860 on roll 2024/25 825 places 866 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Warrington

Postcode WA4 1JL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144799).

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.