School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Trafalgar School at Downton?

In 2026/27, The Trafalgar School at Downton offered 144 places and 130 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.90

first choices for every place available

130 first preferences for 144 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Trafalgar School at Downton

There is no published appeal success rate for The Trafalgar School at Downton, 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

The Trafalgar School at Downton turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at The Trafalgar School at Downton, 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 0.85 per place 88 first choices 104 places 2016/17 1.04 per place 147 first choices 142 places 2017/18 0.95 per place 121 first choices 128 places 2018/19 1.42 per place 245 first choices 172 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 170 first choices 146 places 2020/21 0.91 per place 132 first choices 145 places 2021/22 0.99 per place 149 first choices 151 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 154 first choices 140 places 2023/24 1 per place 153 first choices 153 places 2024/25 1.03 per place 157 first choices 153 places 2025/26 1.24 per place 190 first choices 153 places 2026/27 0.9 per place 130 first choices 144 places
First preferences per place at The Trafalgar School at Downton. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 130 first preferences for 144 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Trafalgar School at Downton, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 104 88 88 0.85
2016/17 142 147 138 1.04
2017/18 128 121 121 0.95
2018/19 172 245 168 1.42
2019/20 146 170 139 1.16
2020/21 145 132 129 0.91
2021/22 151 149 134 0.99
2022/23 140 154 135 1.1
2023/24 153 153 148 1
2024/25 153 157 147 1.03
2025/26 153 190 148 1.24
2026/27 144 130 130 0.9

Places offered

144

in 2026/27

Named first choice

130

369 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

130 of 130

Offers to families outside the council

6%

8 of 144 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 126447.

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

745

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

790

106% of capacity

Over its capacity by

45

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

0

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 Trafalgar School at Downton 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 Trafalgar School at Downton 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 The Trafalgar School at Downton from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 400 800 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 486 places 545 on roll 2010/11 455 places 572 on roll 2011/12 485 places 563 on roll 2012/13 575 places 560 on roll 2013/14 600 places 544 on roll 2014/15 675 places 543 on roll 2015/16 675 places 543 on roll 2016/17 675 places 586 on roll 2017/18 675 places 615 on roll 2018/19 675 places 723 on roll 2020/21 675 places 765 on roll 2021/22 745 places 761 on roll 2022/23 745 places 783 on roll 2023/24 745 places 781 on roll 2024/25 745 places 790 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 SP5 3HN. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144389).

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.