School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at York High School?

In 2026/27, York High School offered 125 places and 119 families named it as their first choice.

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

0.95

first choices for every place available

119 first preferences for 125 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at York High School

There is no published appeal success rate for York 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 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

York High School turned first-choice families away in 1 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 York 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 0.95 per place 153 first choices 161 places 2016/17 0.87 per place 129 first choices 149 places 2017/18 0.86 per place 146 first choices 169 places 2018/19 0.74 per place 132 first choices 178 places 2019/20 0.65 per place 120 first choices 185 places 2020/21 0.62 per place 112 first choices 180 places 2021/22 0.75 per place 114 first choices 152 places 2022/23 0.7 per place 130 first choices 187 places 2023/24 0.9 per place 166 first choices 185 places 2024/25 0.99 per place 146 first choices 148 places 2025/26 1.07 per place 155 first choices 145 places 2026/27 0.95 per place 119 first choices 125 places
First preferences per place at York High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 119 first preferences for 125 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at York 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
2015/16 161 153 152 0.95
2016/17 149 129 129 0.87
2017/18 169 146 146 0.86
2018/19 178 132 132 0.74
2019/20 185 120 120 0.65
2020/21 180 112 112 0.62
2021/22 152 114 114 0.75
2022/23 187 130 130 0.7
2023/24 185 166 166 0.9
2024/25 148 146 145 0.99
2025/26 145 155 141 1.07
2026/27 125 119 119 0.95

Places offered

125

in 2026/27

Named first choice

119

243 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

119 of 119

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 122 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 133946.

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

982

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

745

75.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

237

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

0

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 York 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 York High School reported 237 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 75.9% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at York High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 991 places 853 on roll 2010/11 990 places 803 on roll 2011/12 990 places 775 on roll 2012/13 990 places 783 on roll 2013/14 990 places 794 on roll 2014/15 990 places 799 on roll 2015/16 982 places 755 on roll 2016/17 982 places 733 on roll 2017/18 982 places 731 on roll 2018/19 982 places 721 on roll 2020/21 982 places 734 on roll 2021/22 982 places 714 on roll 2022/23 982 places 723 on roll 2023/24 982 places 744 on roll 2024/25 982 places 745 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
York

Postcode YO24 3WZ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144652).

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.