School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Northampton School for Girls?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 51 families who named Northampton School for Girls as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 262 and 262 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

first choices for every place available

262 first preferences for 262 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Northampton School for Girls

There is no published appeal success rate for Northampton School for Girls, 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 Girls turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 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 School for Girls, 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 1.46 per place 390 first choices 267 places 2016/17 1.77 per place 459 first choices 260 places 2017/18 1.63 per place 436 first choices 267 places 2018/19 1.38 per place 385 first choices 279 places 2019/20 1.58 per place 450 first choices 285 places 2020/21 1.36 per place 385 first choices 283 places 2021/22 1.47 per place 414 first choices 281 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 338 first choices 288 places 2023/24 1.19 per place 339 first choices 285 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 302 first choices 257 places 2025/26 1.1 per place 291 first choices 265 places 2026/27 1 per place 262 first choices 262 places
First preferences per place at Northampton School for Girls. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 262 first preferences for 262 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Northampton School for Girls, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 267 390 251 1.46
2016/17 260 459 244 1.77
2017/18 267 436 255 1.63
2018/19 279 385 257 1.38
2019/20 285 450 266 1.58
2020/21 283 385 264 1.36
2021/22 281 414 260 1.47
2022/23 288 338 266 1.17
2023/24 285 339 248 1.19
2024/25 257 302 204 1.18
2025/26 265 291 234 1.1
2026/27 262 262 211 1

Places offered

262

in 2026/27

Named first choice

262

645 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

80.5%

211 of 262

Offers to families outside the council

4%

10 of 262 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

1,404

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,366

97.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

38

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

440

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 Girls 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 Girls reported 38 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.3% 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, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Northampton School for Girls from 2013/14 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2013/14 1,801 places 1,701 on roll 2014/15 1,801 places 1,678 on roll 2015/16 1,801 places 1,684 on roll 2016/17 1,801 places 1,692 on roll 2017/18 1,801 places 1,682 on roll 2018/19 1,801 places 1,708 on roll 2020/21 1,841 places 1,730 on roll 2021/22 1,841 places 1,746 on roll 2022/23 1,841 places 1,758 on roll 2023/24 1,841 places 1,755 on roll 2024/25 1,844 places 1,730 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 NN3 6DG. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140510).

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.