School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Queen Elizabeth School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 18 families who named Queen Elizabeth School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 248 and 258 put it first.

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

1.04

first choices for every place available

258 first preferences for 248 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Queen Elizabeth School

There is no published appeal success rate for Queen Elizabeth 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 Westmorland and Furness 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 Westmorland and Furness, 43% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 55 of 128 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 Westmorland and Furness.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Westmorland and Furness 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

Queen Elizabeth School turned first-choice families away in 9 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Queen Elizabeth 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 0.99 per place 224 first choices 226 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 236 first choices 222 places 2017/18 0.99 per place 239 first choices 242 places 2018/19 1.02 per place 265 first choices 261 places 2019/20 1.03 per place 264 first choices 256 places 2020/21 1.14 per place 291 first choices 256 places 2021/22 0.96 per place 244 first choices 254 places 2022/23 1.24 per place 313 first choices 252 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 301 first choices 250 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 269 first choices 253 places 2025/26 1.06 per place 263 first choices 247 places 2026/27 1.04 per place 258 first choices 248 places
First preferences per place at Queen Elizabeth School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 258 first preferences for 248 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Queen Elizabeth School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 226 224 224 0.99
2016/17 222 236 222 1.06
2017/18 242 239 239 0.99
2018/19 261 265 254 1.02
2019/20 256 264 249 1.03
2020/21 256 291 254 1.14
2021/22 254 244 241 0.96
2022/23 252 313 251 1.24
2023/24 250 301 246 1.2
2024/25 253 269 250 1.06
2025/26 247 263 244 1.06
2026/27 248 258 240 1.04

Places offered

248

in 2026/27

Named first choice

258

461 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

93%

240 of 258

Offers to families outside the council

56%

140 of 248 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

1,047

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,007

96.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

40

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

420

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 Queen Elizabeth 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 Queen Elizabeth School reported 40 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.2% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Queen Elizabeth School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,620 places 1,461 on roll 2011/12 1,330 places 1,450 on roll 2012/13 1,330 places 1,450 on roll 2013/14 1,330 places 1,431 on roll 2014/15 1,330 places 1,399 on roll 2015/16 1,330 places 1,376 on roll 2016/17 1,620 places 1,374 on roll 2017/18 1,330 places 1,268 on roll 2018/19 1,330 places 1,197 on roll 2020/21 1,620 places 1,165 on roll 2021/22 1,620 places 1,185 on roll 2022/23 1,620 places 1,172 on roll 2023/24 1,620 places 1,179 on roll 2024/25 1,467 places 1,150 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
Westmorland and Furness

Postcode LA6 2HJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136357).

Other contested secondary schools in Westmorland and Furness

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.