School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Woodrush High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 20 families who named Woodrush High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 179 and 180 put it first.

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

1.01

first choices for every place available

180 first preferences for 179 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Woodrush High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Woodrush High 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

Woodrush High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Woodrush High 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 1.34 per place 236 first choices 176 places 2016/17 1.18 per place 207 first choices 175 places 2017/18 1.16 per place 199 first choices 172 places 2018/19 1.22 per place 219 first choices 179 places 2019/20 1.3 per place 225 first choices 173 places 2020/21 1.23 per place 245 first choices 200 places 2021/22 1.22 per place 217 first choices 178 places 2022/23 1.17 per place 207 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.31 per place 233 first choices 178 places 2024/25 0.96 per place 170 first choices 178 places 2025/26 1.05 per place 187 first choices 178 places 2026/27 1.01 per place 180 first choices 179 places
First preferences per place at Woodrush High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 180 first preferences for 179 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Woodrush High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 176 236 171 1.34
2016/17 175 207 164 1.18
2017/18 172 199 165 1.16
2018/19 179 219 170 1.22
2019/20 173 225 157 1.3
2020/21 200 245 187 1.23
2021/22 178 217 163 1.22
2022/23 177 207 161 1.17
2023/24 178 233 161 1.31
2024/25 178 170 153 0.96
2025/26 178 187 162 1.05
2026/27 179 180 160 1.01

Places offered

179

in 2026/27

Named first choice

180

341 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.9%

160 of 180

Offers to families outside the council

28%

51 of 179 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

899

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

889

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

10

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

113

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 Woodrush High 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 Woodrush High School reported 10 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.9% 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 Woodrush High School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,080 places 972 on roll 2012/13 1,080 places 999 on roll 2013/14 1,080 places 993 on roll 2014/15 1,080 places 982 on roll 2015/16 1,080 places 977 on roll 2016/17 1,080 places 1,002 on roll 2017/18 1,013 places 994 on roll 2018/19 1,013 places 989 on roll 2020/21 1,013 places 995 on roll 2021/22 1,013 places 1,005 on roll 2022/23 1,033 places 1,006 on roll 2023/24 1,033 places 998 on roll 2024/25 1,012 places 1,013 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
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Worcestershire

Postcode B47 5JW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136924).

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.