School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Northampton School for Boys?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 365 families who named Northampton School for Boys as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 218 and 571 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.

2.62

first choices for every place available

571 first preferences for 218 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Northampton School for Boys

There is no published appeal success rate for Northampton School for Boys, 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 School for Boys 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 Northampton School for Boys, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.9 1.8 2.6 3.5 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 2.3 per place 464 first choices 202 places 2016/17 3.01 per place 584 first choices 194 places 2017/18 2.74 per place 559 first choices 204 places 2018/19 3.19 per place 648 first choices 203 places 2019/20 3.19 per place 644 first choices 202 places 2020/21 2.93 per place 621 first choices 212 places 2021/22 2.56 per place 528 first choices 206 places 2022/23 2.51 per place 523 first choices 208 places 2023/24 2.35 per place 496 first choices 211 places 2024/25 2.75 per place 580 first choices 211 places 2025/26 2.51 per place 553 first choices 220 places 2026/27 2.62 per place 571 first choices 218 places
First preferences per place at Northampton School for Boys. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 571 first preferences for 218 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Northampton School for Boys, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 202 464 201 2.3
2016/17 194 584 187 3.01
2017/18 204 559 198 2.74
2018/19 203 648 195 3.19
2019/20 202 644 192 3.19
2020/21 212 621 205 2.93
2021/22 206 528 203 2.56
2022/23 208 523 199 2.51
2023/24 211 496 196 2.35
2024/25 211 580 202 2.75
2025/26 220 553 205 2.51
2026/27 218 571 206 2.62

Places offered

218

in 2026/27

Named first choice

571

981 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

36.1%

206 of 571

Offers to families outside the council

11%

25 of 218 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

1,097

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,143

104.2% of capacity

Over its capacity by

46

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

520

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 School for Boys 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 School for Boys 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Northampton School for Boys from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,494 places 1,507 on roll 2011/12 1,821 places 1,481 on roll 2012/13 1,638 places 1,487 on roll 2013/14 1,638 places 1,491 on roll 2014/15 1,638 places 1,501 on roll 2015/16 1,638 places 1,529 on roll 2016/17 1,638 places 1,609 on roll 2017/18 1,638 places 1,610 on roll 2018/19 1,617 places 1,623 on roll 2020/21 1,617 places 1,624 on roll 2021/22 1,617 places 1,602 on roll 2022/23 1,617 places 1,602 on roll 2023/24 1,617 places 1,677 on roll 2024/25 1,617 places 1,709 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 NN1 5RT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136299).

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.