School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Thomas Telford University Technical College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 233 families who named Thomas Telford University Technical College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 149 and 349 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Wolverhampton actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 7 years of official figures.

2.34

first choices for every place available

349 first preferences for 149 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Thomas Telford University Technical College

There is no published appeal success rate for Thomas Telford University Technical College, 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

Thomas Telford University Technical College turned first-choice families away in every one of the 7 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 Thomas Telford University Technical College, 2020/21 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2020/21 1.87 per place 279 first choices 149 places 2021/22 1.84 per place 269 first choices 146 places 2022/23 2.56 per place 379 first choices 148 places 2023/24 2.73 per place 387 first choices 142 places 2024/25 2.76 per place 405 first choices 147 places 2025/26 2.79 per place 410 first choices 147 places 2026/27 2.34 per place 349 first choices 149 places
First preferences per place at Thomas Telford University Technical College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 349 first preferences for 149 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Thomas Telford University Technical College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2020/21 149 279 104 1.87
2021/22 146 269 104 1.84
2022/23 148 379 128 2.56
2023/24 142 387 120 2.73
2024/25 147 405 129 2.76
2025/26 147 410 121 2.79
2026/27 149 349 116 2.34

Places offered

149

in 2026/27

Named first choice

349

908 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

33.2%

116 of 349

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 149 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

784

104.5% of capacity

Over its capacity by

34

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

300

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 Thomas Telford University Technical College 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 Thomas Telford University Technical College 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, 2015/16 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Thomas Telford University Technical College from 2015/16 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2015/16 600 places 99 on roll 2016/17 600 places 188 on roll 2017/18 600 places 208 on roll 2018/19 600 places 189 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 353 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 543 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 703 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 805 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 943 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
University technical college
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Wolverhampton

Postcode WV10 0JR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 140160).

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.