School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Bewdley School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 47 families who named The Bewdley School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 174 and 216 put it first.

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

1.24

first choices for every place available

216 first preferences for 174 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Bewdley School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Bewdley 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 Worcestershire 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 Worcestershire, 19.7% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 90 of 458 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 Worcestershire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Worcestershire 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 Bewdley School turned first-choice families away in 7 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 The Bewdley 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 0.95 per place 143 first choices 150 places 2016/17 0.95 per place 138 first choices 145 places 2017/18 0.98 per place 155 first choices 158 places 2018/19 0.99 per place 175 first choices 176 places 2019/20 0.97 per place 158 first choices 163 places 2020/21 1.07 per place 176 first choices 164 places 2021/22 1.18 per place 196 first choices 166 places 2022/23 1.19 per place 204 first choices 171 places 2023/24 1.06 per place 187 first choices 177 places 2024/25 1.06 per place 186 first choices 175 places 2025/26 1.07 per place 186 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.24 per place 216 first choices 174 places
First preferences per place at The Bewdley School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 216 first preferences for 174 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Bewdley School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 150 143 142 0.95
2016/17 145 138 138 0.95
2017/18 158 155 155 0.98
2018/19 176 175 173 0.99
2019/20 163 158 158 0.97
2020/21 164 176 158 1.07
2021/22 166 196 165 1.18
2022/23 171 204 162 1.19
2023/24 177 187 168 1.06
2024/25 175 186 173 1.06
2025/26 174 186 160 1.07
2026/27 174 216 169 1.24

Places offered

174

in 2026/27

Named first choice

216

381 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

78.2%

169 of 216

Offers to families outside the council

2%

3 of 174 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

868

96.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

32

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

120

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 Bewdley 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 The Bewdley School reported 32 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.4% 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 The Bewdley 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 1,018 places 965 on roll 2010/11 1,018 places 959 on roll 2011/12 958 places 929 on roll 2012/13 958 places 953 on roll 2013/14 958 places 933 on roll 2014/15 958 places 961 on roll 2015/16 958 places 955 on roll 2016/17 958 places 930 on roll 2017/18 958 places 922 on roll 2018/19 1,015 places 939 on roll 2020/21 1,015 places 961 on roll 2021/22 1,015 places 987 on roll 2022/23 990 places 966 on roll 2023/24 990 places 966 on roll 2024/25 1,020 places 960 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
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Worcestershire

Postcode DY12 1BL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135035).

Other contested secondary schools in Worcestershire

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.