School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Bartholomew's School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 15 families who named St Bartholomew's School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 265 and 275 put it first.

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

1.04

first choices for every place available

275 first preferences for 265 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Bartholomew's School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Bartholomew's 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 West Berkshire 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 West Berkshire, 25.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 36 of 139 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 West Berkshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not West Berkshire 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 Bartholomew's School 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 St Bartholomew's 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 1.06 per place 273 first choices 258 places 2016/17 1.12 per place 295 first choices 263 places 2017/18 1.3 per place 342 first choices 263 places 2018/19 1.22 per place 322 first choices 265 places 2019/20 1.32 per place 351 first choices 266 places 2020/21 1.41 per place 377 first choices 267 places 2021/22 1.25 per place 335 first choices 268 places 2022/23 1.43 per place 384 first choices 269 places 2023/24 1.48 per place 391 first choices 265 places 2024/25 1.38 per place 367 first choices 266 places 2025/26 1.38 per place 355 first choices 257 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 275 first choices 265 places
First preferences per place at St Bartholomew's School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 275 first preferences for 265 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Bartholomew's School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 258 273 250 1.06
2016/17 263 295 255 1.12
2017/18 263 342 260 1.3
2018/19 265 322 262 1.22
2019/20 266 351 265 1.32
2020/21 267 377 265 1.41
2021/22 268 335 257 1.25
2022/23 269 384 266 1.43
2023/24 265 391 259 1.48
2024/25 266 367 262 1.38
2025/26 257 355 256 1.38
2026/27 265 275 260 1.04

Places offered

265

in 2026/27

Named first choice

275

497 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

94.5%

260 of 275

Offers to families outside the council

2%

5 of 265 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

1,350

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,348

99.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

2

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

572

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 Bartholomew's 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 St Bartholomew's School reported 2 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.9% 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 St Bartholomew's School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,000 2,000 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,710 places 1,653 on roll 2012/13 1,710 places 1,675 on roll 2013/14 1,710 places 1,679 on roll 2014/15 1,710 places 1,683 on roll 2015/16 1,710 places 1,675 on roll 2016/17 1,742 places 1,729 on roll 2017/18 1,742 places 1,751 on roll 2018/19 1,742 places 1,796 on roll 2020/21 1,922 places 1,906 on roll 2021/22 1,922 places 1,897 on roll 2022/23 1,922 places 1,939 on roll 2023/24 1,922 places 1,983 on roll 2024/25 1,922 places 1,925 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
West Berkshire

Postcode RG14 6JP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137465).

Other contested secondary schools in West Berkshire

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.