School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Caroline Chisholm School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named Caroline Chisholm School as their first choice did not get a place: 156 put it first and 139 of them were offered one.

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

17

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

156 first preferences for 210 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Caroline Chisholm School

There is no published appeal success rate for Caroline Chisholm 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 Northamptonshire 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 Northamptonshire, 11.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 112 of 995 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 Northamptonshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not West Northamptonshire 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

Caroline Chisholm School 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 Caroline Chisholm 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 1.12 per place 188 first choices 168 places 2016/17 0.98 per place 209 first choices 214 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 211 first choices 214 places 2018/19 1 per place 212 first choices 213 places 2019/20 0.79 per place 169 first choices 213 places 2020/21 0.67 per place 145 first choices 218 places 2021/22 0.74 per place 163 first choices 219 places 2022/23 0.64 per place 138 first choices 214 places 2023/24 0.77 per place 164 first choices 212 places 2024/25 0.65 per place 140 first choices 215 places 2025/26 0.83 per place 167 first choices 201 places 2026/27 0.74 per place 156 first choices 210 places
First preferences per place at Caroline Chisholm School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 156 first preferences for 210 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Caroline Chisholm School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 168 188 149 1.12
2016/17 214 209 184 0.98
2017/18 214 211 190 0.99
2018/19 213 212 171 1
2019/20 213 169 151 0.79
2020/21 218 145 141 0.67
2021/22 219 163 154 0.74
2022/23 214 138 132 0.64
2023/24 212 164 148 0.77
2024/25 215 140 117 0.65
2025/26 201 167 141 0.83
2026/27 210 156 139 0.74

Places offered

210

in 2026/27

Named first choice

156

537 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

89.1%

139 of 156

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 210 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

1,827

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,799

98.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

28

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

370

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 Caroline Chisholm 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 Caroline Chisholm School reported 28 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.5% 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 Caroline Chisholm School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 1,100 2,200 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,990 places 1,830 on roll 2012/13 2,002 places 1,865 on roll 2013/14 2,002 places 1,892 on roll 2014/15 2,002 places 1,911 on roll 2015/16 2,002 places 1,910 on roll 2016/17 2,002 places 1,961 on roll 2017/18 2,002 places 1,972 on roll 2018/19 2,002 places 2,000 on roll 2020/21 2,002 places 2,054 on roll 2021/22 2,197 places 2,117 on roll 2022/23 2,197 places 2,138 on roll 2023/24 2,197 places 2,152 on roll 2024/25 2,197 places 2,134 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 Northamptonshire

Postcode NN4 6TP. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137089).

Other contested secondary schools in West Northamptonshire

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.