School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wirral Grammar School for Boys?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 24 families who named Wirral Grammar School for Boys as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 167 and 190 put it first.

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

1.14

first choices for every place available

190 first preferences for 167 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wirral Grammar School for Boys

There is no published appeal success rate for Wirral Grammar School for Boys, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Wirral 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 Wirral, 26.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 338 of 1,293 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 Wirral.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Wirral 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

Wirral Grammar School for Boys turned first-choice families away in 10 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 Wirral Grammar School for Boys, 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 1.11 per place 171 first choices 154 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 164 first choices 155 places 2017/18 1.16 per place 177 first choices 153 places 2018/19 0.92 per place 132 first choices 144 places 2019/20 0.96 per place 149 first choices 155 places 2020/21 1.05 per place 163 first choices 155 places 2021/22 1.09 per place 163 first choices 150 places 2022/23 1.16 per place 178 first choices 154 places 2023/24 1.06 per place 163 first choices 154 places 2024/25 1.03 per place 170 first choices 165 places 2025/26 1.03 per place 151 first choices 147 places 2026/27 1.14 per place 190 first choices 167 places
First preferences per place at Wirral Grammar School for Boys. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 190 first preferences for 167 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wirral Grammar School for Boys, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 154 171 153 1.11
2016/17 155 164 154 1.06
2017/18 153 177 153 1.16
2018/19 144 132 129 0.92
2019/20 155 149 142 0.96
2020/21 155 163 154 1.05
2021/22 150 163 146 1.09
2022/23 154 178 153 1.16
2023/24 154 163 154 1.06
2024/25 165 170 162 1.03
2025/26 147 151 146 1.03
2026/27 167 190 166 1.14

Places offered

167

in 2026/27

Named first choice

190

409 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

87.4%

166 of 190

Offers to families outside the council

29%

49 of 167 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

907

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

817

90.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

90

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

287

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 Wirral Grammar School for Boys 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 Wirral Grammar School for Boys reported 90 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 90.1% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Wirral Grammar School for Boys from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,148 places 1,031 on roll 2012/13 1,111 places 1,031 on roll 2013/14 1,111 places 1,048 on roll 2014/15 1,080 places 1,066 on roll 2015/16 1,062 places 1,074 on roll 2016/17 1,062 places 1,075 on roll 2017/18 1,062 places 1,058 on roll 2018/19 1,180 places 1,064 on roll 2020/21 1,194 places 1,058 on roll 2021/22 1,194 places 1,056 on roll 2022/23 1,194 places 1,053 on roll 2023/24 1,194 places 1,042 on roll 2024/25 1,194 places 1,076 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
Wirral

Postcode CH63 3AQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137476).

Other contested secondary schools in Wirral

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.