School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wolverley CofE Secondary School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 26 families who named Wolverley CofE Secondary School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 167 and 190 put it first.

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

1.14

first choices for every place available

190 first preferences for 167 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wolverley CofE Secondary School

There is no published appeal success rate for Wolverley CofE Secondary 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

Wolverley CofE Secondary School turned first-choice families away in 8 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 Wolverley CofE Secondary 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 88 first choices 93 places 2016/17 0.94 per place 118 first choices 126 places 2017/18 0.97 per place 135 first choices 139 places 2018/19 1.22 per place 176 first choices 144 places 2019/20 1.07 per place 182 first choices 170 places 2020/21 1.11 per place 197 first choices 177 places 2021/22 1.09 per place 189 first choices 174 places 2022/23 1.47 per place 260 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.16 per place 208 first choices 179 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 163 first choices 167 places 2025/26 1.25 per place 215 first choices 172 places 2026/27 1.14 per place 190 first choices 167 places
First preferences per place at Wolverley CofE Secondary School. 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 Wolverley CofE Secondary 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 93 88 87 0.95
2016/17 126 118 118 0.94
2017/18 139 135 135 0.97
2018/19 144 176 142 1.22
2019/20 170 182 168 1.07
2020/21 177 197 176 1.11
2021/22 174 189 171 1.09
2022/23 177 260 173 1.47
2023/24 179 208 170 1.16
2024/25 167 163 162 0.98
2025/26 172 215 166 1.25
2026/27 167 190 164 1.14

Places offered

167

in 2026/27

Named first choice

190

382 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

86.3%

164 of 190

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 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

985

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

887

90.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

98

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

130

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 Wolverley CofE Secondary 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 Wolverley CofE Secondary School reported 98 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Wolverley CofE Secondary School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,008 places 901 on roll 2010/11 1,008 places 858 on roll 2011/12 1,008 places 812 on roll 2012/13 1,025 places 745 on roll 2013/14 1,025 places 679 on roll 2014/15 1,025 places 599 on roll 2015/16 855 places 559 on roll 2016/17 855 places 585 on roll 2017/18 855 places 615 on roll 2018/19 855 places 675 on roll 2020/21 855 places 807 on roll 2021/22 1,005 places 869 on roll 2022/23 1,005 places 911 on roll 2023/24 1,115 places 947 on roll 2024/25 1,115 places 962 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
Voluntary controlled school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Worcestershire

Postcode DY11 5XQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135061).

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.