School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Coppice Performing Arts School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 75 families who named Coppice Performing Arts School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 175 and 234 put it first.

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

1.34

first choices for every place available

234 first preferences for 175 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Coppice Performing Arts School

There is no published appeal success rate for Coppice Performing Arts 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 Wolverhampton 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 Wolverhampton, 10.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 133 of 1,282 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 Wolverhampton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Wolverhampton 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

Coppice Performing Arts 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 Coppice Performing Arts 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 1.02 per place 181 first choices 177 places 2016/17 1.19 per place 209 first choices 176 places 2017/18 1.02 per place 178 first choices 175 places 2018/19 1.05 per place 182 first choices 173 places 2019/20 1.22 per place 218 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.1 per place 198 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.34 per place 236 first choices 176 places 2022/23 1.15 per place 205 first choices 179 places 2023/24 1.3 per place 229 first choices 176 places 2024/25 1.22 per place 214 first choices 176 places 2025/26 1.27 per place 221 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.34 per place 234 first choices 175 places
First preferences per place at Coppice Performing Arts School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 234 first preferences for 175 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Coppice Performing Arts School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 177 181 162 1.02
2016/17 176 209 167 1.19
2017/18 175 178 153 1.02
2018/19 173 182 151 1.05
2019/20 178 218 161 1.22
2020/21 180 198 163 1.1
2021/22 176 236 164 1.34
2022/23 179 205 165 1.15
2023/24 176 229 165 1.3
2024/25 176 214 157 1.22
2025/26 174 221 154 1.27
2026/27 175 234 159 1.34

Places offered

175

in 2026/27

Named first choice

234

486 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

67.9%

159 of 234

Offers to families outside the council

45%

78 of 175 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 104390.

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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

891

99% of capacity

Unfilled places

9

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

109

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 Coppice Performing Arts 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 Coppice Performing Arts School reported 9 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99% 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 Coppice Performing Arts School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 905 places 898 on roll 2010/11 907 places 917 on roll 2011/12 919 places 906 on roll 2012/13 905 places 903 on roll 2013/14 999 places 919 on roll 2014/15 1,033 places 913 on roll 2015/16 1,093 places 943 on roll 2016/17 1,082 places 948 on roll 2017/18 1,078 places 964 on roll 2018/19 1,009 places 996 on roll 2020/21 1,009 places 1,033 on roll 2021/22 1,009 places 1,017 on roll 2022/23 1,009 places 992 on roll 2023/24 1,009 places 1,019 on roll 2024/25 1,009 places 997 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Wolverhampton

Postcode WV11 2QE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 145114).

Other contested secondary schools in Wolverhampton

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.