School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Paul's Catholic College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 98 families who named St Paul's Catholic College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 173 and 268 put it first.

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

1.55

first choices for every place available

268 first preferences for 173 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Paul's Catholic College

There is no published appeal success rate for St Paul's Catholic College, 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 Sussex 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 Sussex, 19.9% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 239 of 1,199 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 Sussex.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not West Sussex 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 Paul's Catholic College 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 Paul's Catholic College, 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 1.32 per place 196 first choices 149 places 2016/17 1.38 per place 200 first choices 145 places 2017/18 1.36 per place 203 first choices 149 places 2018/19 1.06 per place 191 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.21 per place 215 first choices 177 places 2020/21 1.01 per place 181 first choices 179 places 2021/22 1.27 per place 227 first choices 179 places 2022/23 1.11 per place 203 first choices 183 places 2023/24 1.25 per place 221 first choices 177 places 2024/25 1.35 per place 241 first choices 178 places 2025/26 1.4 per place 249 first choices 178 places 2026/27 1.55 per place 268 first choices 173 places
First preferences per place at St Paul's Catholic College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 268 first preferences for 173 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Paul's Catholic College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 149 196 148 1.32
2016/17 145 200 144 1.38
2017/18 149 203 149 1.36
2018/19 180 191 176 1.06
2019/20 177 215 175 1.21
2020/21 179 181 169 1.01
2021/22 179 227 178 1.27
2022/23 183 203 180 1.11
2023/24 177 221 173 1.25
2024/25 178 241 175 1.35
2025/26 178 249 174 1.4
2026/27 173 268 170 1.55

Places offered

173

in 2026/27

Named first choice

268

657 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

63.4%

170 of 268

Offers to families outside the council

9%

16 of 173 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 126101.

How close you had to live

St Paul's Catholic College filled its places in 2026, and 2,559m — 1.59 miles — is how far away the last child to be offered a place lived. They were admitted under criterion 11a , which is numbered in the school's own admission arrangements for that year.

Last place offered at

1.59 mi

2,559 metres, 2026

Under criterion

11a

as numbered by the school

This is not a line you passed or failed

A panel cannot refuse your appeal because you live beyond this distance, and cannot allow it because you live inside. The cut-off describes how the arrangements were applied to last year's applicants. At the first stage the panel asks whether the arrangements were lawful and applied to you correctly; at the second it weighs your child's circumstances against the harm to the school of admitting another pupil. Neither question has a distance in it. Families further out than this figure win appeals, and families inside it did not need one.

It also changes every year, because it is set by who happened to apply, not by a boundary the school draws. Last year's figure does not tell you this year's.

West Sussex Council, allocation statistics for 2026. Source document. Published under the Open Government Licence. Cut-off distances are not a statutory publication — the School Information (England) Regulations 2008 require only the admission number and the preferences received — so a council publishes these voluntarily and many publish none at all.

How places were ranked

These are the oversubscription criteria St Paul's Catholic College published for 2026 entry, in the order the school itself sets them out. They are the rules the admission authority had to apply when more families applied than there were places — and at the first stage of an appeal, they are the document the panel is looking at.

Oversubscription criteria for St Paul's Catholic College, 2026 entry, quoted from the school's determined admission arrangements. Sub-clauses are shown indented under the criterion they qualify.
Rank Criterion, as the school words it
1 Catholic looked after children or previously looked after children (see note b. & c.).
2 Catholic children who are considered to have an exceptional or compelling need, supported by written evidence (see note l.).
3 Catholic children currently attending one of the named feeder schools (see note k.). The application must be supported with a certificate of Catholic baptism or reception into the Catholic Church (see note c.), and on the Supplementary Information Form, their parish priest’s signature with the parish stamp or seal.
4 Catholic children, resident in the catchment area (see note h.) who do not attend one of the named feeder schools (see note k.). The application must be supported with a certificate of Catholic baptism or reception into the Catholic Church (see note c.), and on the Supplementary Information Form, their parish priest’s signature with the parish stamp or seal.
5 Catholic children, not resident in the catchment area (see note h.) who do not attend one of the named feeder schools (see note k.). The application must be supported with a certificate of Catholic baptism or reception into the Catholic Church (see note c.), and on the Supplementary Information Form, their parish priest’s signature with the parish stamp or seal.
6 Other Catholic children (see note c.) i.e those Catholic children whose application do not have their priest’s signature with the parish stamp or seal on the Supplementary Information Form. The application must be supported with a certificate of Catholic baptism or reception into the Catholic Church (see note c.)
7 Other looked after children or previously looked after children (see note b.).
8 Catechumens, Candidates for Reception into the Church and children who are members of an Orthodox Church (see note d. & e.). If application is being made for a place at the school where the parent/carer is a Catechumen or Candidate for reception into the Church, evidence of their being a member of the Catechumenate of a Catholic Church or a Candidate for reception will be required. Proof of acceptance into the catechumenate, and evidence for a candidate, should be by letter from the appropriate priest. […] criterion continues in the source document
9 Other children who are considered to have an exceptional or compelling need, supported by written evidence (see note l.).
10 Other children currently attending one of the named feeder schools (see note k.).
11 Children of other Christian denominations (see note m.) whose membership is evidenced by either a certificate of baptism (where applicable) or by a minister of religion. The application must be supported by either a certificate of baptism or a letter confirming membership of the Christian denomination, signed by the minister of religion.
12 Any other children. Within each of the categories listed above, priority will be given to:
i. Children with a brother or sister at St Paul’s Catholic College at the time of admission (see note f.). Final Tiebreaker: Pri

The first criterion is not the school's choice. Paragraph 1.7 of the School Admissions Code 2021 requires every admission authority in England to give looked-after and previously looked-after children the highest priority, so it sits at the top of every list of this kind.

Meeting a criterion is not the same as winning an appeal

A panel does not decide your appeal by working through this list again. At the first stage it asks a narrower question: were these arrangements lawful, and were they applied to your application correctly and impartially? If they were, the panel moves to the second stage and weighs your child's circumstances against the harm to the school of admitting another pupil — and that stage has nothing to do with which criterion you fell under.

So this list is most useful for checking one thing: whether the school applied its own published rules to you properly. A criterion applied to you in a way the wording does not support is a first-stage point. Simply falling into a lower category is not — that is the system working as published.

These are the criteria determined for 2026 entry. An admission authority must re-determine its arrangements by 15 March each year, so check the school's current version before relying on any of this for a different round.

St Paul's Catholic College's determined admission arrangements for 2026 entry, published by the admission authority under paragraph 1.47 of the School Admissions Code 2021. Source document. Quoted verbatim; wording, order and numbering are the school's own.

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

877

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

921

105% of capacity

Over its capacity by

44

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

350

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 Paul's Catholic College 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 Paul's Catholic College 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 St Paul's Catholic College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 916 places 836 on roll 2010/11 916 places 860 on roll 2011/12 916 places 950 on roll 2012/13 1,008 places 972 on roll 2013/14 1,045 places 1,016 on roll 2014/15 1,045 places 1,066 on roll 2015/16 1,045 places 1,108 on roll 2016/17 1,045 places 1,123 on roll 2017/18 1,045 places 1,091 on roll 2018/19 1,106 places 1,105 on roll 2020/21 1,227 places 1,118 on roll 2021/22 1,227 places 1,112 on roll 2022/23 1,227 places 1,130 on roll 2023/24 1,227 places 1,164 on roll 2024/25 1,227 places 1,185 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
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
West Sussex

Postcode RH15 8GA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 148753).

Other contested secondary schools in West Sussex

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.