School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 43 families who named The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 245 and 275 put it first.

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

1.12

first choices for every place available

275 first preferences for 245 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College

There is no published appeal success rate for The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form 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 Wigan 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 Wigan, 18.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 99 of 538 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 Wigan.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Wigan 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

The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College turned first-choice families away in 8 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 The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form 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 0.78 per place 186 first choices 240 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 221 first choices 248 places 2017/18 0.96 per place 210 first choices 219 places 2018/19 0.83 per place 203 first choices 244 places 2019/20 1.07 per place 284 first choices 266 places 2020/21 1.28 per place 314 first choices 245 places 2021/22 1.16 per place 287 first choices 247 places 2022/23 1.44 per place 348 first choices 242 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 301 first choices 245 places 2024/25 1.24 per place 302 first choices 244 places 2025/26 1.24 per place 301 first choices 243 places 2026/27 1.12 per place 275 first choices 245 places
First preferences per place at The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 275 first preferences for 245 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 240 186 186 0.78
2016/17 248 221 218 0.89
2017/18 219 210 208 0.96
2018/19 244 203 203 0.83
2019/20 266 284 229 1.07
2020/21 245 314 221 1.28
2021/22 247 287 236 1.16
2022/23 242 348 230 1.44
2023/24 245 301 232 1.23
2024/25 244 302 236 1.24
2025/26 243 301 232 1.24
2026/27 245 275 232 1.12

Places offered

245

in 2026/27

Named first choice

275

745 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.4%

232 of 275

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 245 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

1,356

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,242

91.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

114

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

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 The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form 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 The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College reported 114 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91.6% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,389 places 1,552 on roll 2010/11 1,389 places 1,514 on roll 2011/12 1,389 places 1,460 on roll 2012/13 1,389 places 1,390 on roll 2013/14 1,387 places 1,307 on roll 2014/15 1,387 places 1,282 on roll 2015/16 1,429 places 1,317 on roll 2016/17 1,429 places 1,307 on roll 2017/18 1,429 places 1,308 on roll 2018/19 1,429 places 1,365 on roll 2020/21 1,429 places 1,435 on roll 2021/22 1,429 places 1,419 on roll 2022/23 1,429 places 1,428 on roll 2023/24 1,429 places 1,404 on roll 2024/25 1,556 places 1,368 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
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Wigan

Postcode WN1 1HQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 106534).

Other contested secondary schools in Wigan

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.