School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at South Wilts Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 73 families who named South Wilts Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 158 and 230 put it first.

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

1.46

first choices for every place available

230 first preferences for 158 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at South Wilts Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for South Wilts Grammar 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 Wiltshire 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 Wiltshire, 24.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 55 of 228 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 Wiltshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Wiltshire 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

South Wilts Grammar School 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 South Wilts Grammar 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 1.15 per place 172 first choices 150 places 2016/17 1.18 per place 177 first choices 150 places 2017/18 1.15 per place 183 first choices 159 places 2018/19 1.26 per place 201 first choices 160 places 2019/20 1.31 per place 209 first choices 160 places 2020/21 1.23 per place 196 first choices 160 places 2021/22 1.81 per place 277 first choices 153 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 175 first choices 151 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 186 first choices 157 places 2024/25 1.3 per place 208 first choices 160 places 2025/26 1.52 per place 244 first choices 160 places 2026/27 1.46 per place 230 first choices 158 places
First preferences per place at South Wilts Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 230 first preferences for 158 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at South Wilts Grammar School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 150 172 150 1.15
2016/17 150 177 150 1.18
2017/18 159 183 159 1.15
2018/19 160 201 159 1.26
2019/20 160 209 159 1.31
2020/21 160 196 159 1.23
2021/22 153 277 150 1.81
2022/23 151 175 148 1.16
2023/24 157 186 156 1.18
2024/25 160 208 159 1.3
2025/26 160 244 160 1.52
2026/27 158 230 157 1.46

Places offered

158

in 2026/27

Named first choice

230

266 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

68.3%

157 of 230

Offers to families outside the council

18%

28 of 158 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

771

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

797

103.4% of capacity

Over its capacity by

26

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 South Wilts Grammar 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 South Wilts Grammar School 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 South Wilts Grammar School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 978 places 996 on roll 2011/12 978 places 1,021 on roll 2012/13 978 places 1,019 on roll 2013/14 978 places 1,013 on roll 2014/15 978 places 1,012 on roll 2015/16 978 places 995 on roll 2016/17 1,121 places 998 on roll 2017/18 1,121 places 1,034 on roll 2018/19 1,121 places 1,065 on roll 2020/21 1,121 places 1,127 on roll 2021/22 1,121 places 1,150 on roll 2022/23 1,121 places 1,136 on roll 2023/24 1,121 places 1,132 on roll 2024/25 1,121 places 1,180 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Wiltshire

Postcode SP1 3JJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136391).

Other contested secondary schools in Wiltshire

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.