School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Northampton Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 195 families who named Northampton Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 283 and 459 put it first.

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

1.62

first choices for every place available

459 first preferences for 283 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Northampton Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Northampton Academy, 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

Northampton Academy turned first-choice families away in 11 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 2 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 Northampton Academy, 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 0.83 per place 186 first choices 223 places 2016/17 0.84 per place 197 first choices 234 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 233 first choices 235 places 2018/19 1.25 per place 293 first choices 234 places 2019/20 1.25 per place 325 first choices 260 places 2020/21 1.21 per place 355 first choices 294 places 2021/22 1.18 per place 384 first choices 325 places 2022/23 1.7 per place 433 first choices 255 places 2023/24 1.67 per place 415 first choices 249 places 2024/25 1.52 per place 431 first choices 283 places 2025/26 1.47 per place 427 first choices 291 places 2026/27 1.62 per place 459 first choices 283 places
First preferences per place at Northampton Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 459 first preferences for 283 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Northampton Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 223 186 186 0.83
2016/17 234 197 170 0.84
2017/18 235 233 191 0.99
2018/19 234 293 182 1.25
2019/20 260 325 217 1.25
2020/21 294 355 253 1.21
2021/22 325 384 277 1.18
2022/23 255 433 240 1.7
2023/24 249 415 228 1.67
2024/25 283 431 259 1.52
2025/26 291 427 257 1.47
2026/27 283 459 264 1.62

Places offered

283

in 2026/27

Named first choice

459

1,065 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

57.5%

264 of 459

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 283 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

1,440

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,467

101.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

27

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

220

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 Northampton Academy 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 Northampton Academy 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 Northampton Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,400 places 1,335 on roll 2010/11 1,420 places 1,327 on roll 2011/12 1,200 places 1,313 on roll 2012/13 1,420 places 1,369 on roll 2013/14 1,420 places 1,362 on roll 2014/15 1,420 places 1,361 on roll 2015/16 1,420 places 1,337 on roll 2016/17 1,420 places 1,353 on roll 2017/18 1,420 places 1,392 on roll 2018/19 1,420 places 1,433 on roll 2020/21 1,540 places 1,559 on roll 2021/22 1,660 places 1,675 on roll 2022/23 1,660 places 1,716 on roll 2023/24 1,660 places 1,697 on roll 2024/25 1,660 places 1,722 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
West Northamptonshire

Postcode NN3 8NH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 134814).

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.