School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St John's Marlborough?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 45 families who named St John's Marlborough as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 265 and 308 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

308 first preferences for 265 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St John's Marlborough

There is no published appeal success rate for St John's Marlborough, 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

St John's Marlborough 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 John's Marlborough, 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 1.13 per place 286 first choices 253 places 2016/17 1.09 per place 281 first choices 257 places 2017/18 1.12 per place 289 first choices 259 places 2018/19 1.12 per place 286 first choices 256 places 2019/20 1.09 per place 278 first choices 255 places 2020/21 1.01 per place 262 first choices 260 places 2021/22 1.21 per place 314 first choices 259 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 299 first choices 258 places 2023/24 1.1 per place 285 first choices 259 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 314 first choices 266 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 275 first choices 265 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 308 first choices 265 places
First preferences per place at St John's Marlborough. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 308 first preferences for 265 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St John's Marlborough, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 253 286 253 1.13
2016/17 257 281 257 1.09
2017/18 259 289 258 1.12
2018/19 256 286 255 1.12
2019/20 255 278 255 1.09
2020/21 260 262 256 1.01
2021/22 259 314 258 1.21
2022/23 258 299 258 1.16
2023/24 259 285 255 1.1
2024/25 266 314 264 1.18
2025/26 265 275 262 1.04
2026/27 265 308 263 1.16

Places offered

265

in 2026/27

Named first choice

308

373 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

85.4%

263 of 308

Offers to families outside the council

5%

13 of 265 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

1,370

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,316

96.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

54

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

400

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 John's Marlborough 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 John's Marlborough reported 54 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.1% 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, 2012/13 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St John's Marlborough from 2012/13 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 900 1,800 places on roll 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2012/13 1,620 places 1,692 on roll 2013/14 1,620 places 1,684 on roll 2014/15 1,620 places 1,706 on roll 2015/16 1,730 places 1,674 on roll 2016/17 1,730 places 1,675 on roll 2017/18 1,730 places 1,675 on roll 2018/19 1,730 places 1,657 on roll 2020/21 1,730 places 1,717 on roll 2021/22 1,730 places 1,709 on roll 2022/23 1,770 places 1,726 on roll 2023/24 1,770 places 1,720 on roll 2024/25 1,770 places 1,707 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
Wiltshire

Postcode SN8 4AX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 138623).

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.