School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Fulford School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 23 families who named Fulford School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 286 and 302 put it first.

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

1.06

first choices for every place available

302 first preferences for 286 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Fulford School

There is no published appeal success rate for Fulford 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 York 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 York, 43.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 36 of 83 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 York.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not York 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

Fulford School turned first-choice families away in 11 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 Fulford 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 1.08 per place 272 first choices 251 places 2016/17 1.11 per place 241 first choices 217 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 284 first choices 265 places 2018/19 1.06 per place 265 first choices 249 places 2019/20 1.07 per place 293 first choices 274 places 2020/21 1.1 per place 294 first choices 267 places 2021/22 1.1 per place 286 first choices 260 places 2022/23 1.02 per place 270 first choices 266 places 2023/24 0.98 per place 290 first choices 295 places 2024/25 1.19 per place 349 first choices 294 places 2025/26 1.1 per place 324 first choices 295 places 2026/27 1.06 per place 302 first choices 286 places
First preferences per place at Fulford School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 302 first preferences for 286 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Fulford School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 251 272 250 1.08
2016/17 217 241 216 1.11
2017/18 265 284 262 1.07
2018/19 249 265 249 1.06
2019/20 274 293 267 1.07
2020/21 267 294 259 1.1
2021/22 260 286 258 1.1
2022/23 266 270 259 1.02
2023/24 295 290 284 0.98
2024/25 294 349 287 1.19
2025/26 295 324 286 1.1
2026/27 286 302 279 1.06

Places offered

286

in 2026/27

Named first choice

302

635 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

92.4%

279 of 302

Offers to families outside the council

8%

24 of 286 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 121684.

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

1,496

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,414

94.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

82

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

403

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 Fulford 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 Fulford School reported 82 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.5% 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 Fulford School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,277 places 1,331 on roll 2010/11 1,349 places 1,360 on roll 2011/12 1,349 places 1,354 on roll 2012/13 1,349 places 1,322 on roll 2013/14 1,349 places 1,332 on roll 2014/15 1,349 places 1,351 on roll 2015/16 1,409 places 1,400 on roll 2016/17 1,603 places 1,379 on roll 2017/18 1,603 places 1,412 on roll 2018/19 1,529 places 1,453 on roll 2020/21 1,529 places 1,582 on roll 2021/22 1,649 places 1,618 on roll 2022/23 1,649 places 1,651 on roll 2023/24 1,899 places 1,715 on roll 2024/25 1,899 places 1,767 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
York

Postcode YO10 4FY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144711).

Other contested secondary schools in York

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.