School Applications and Offers
The School Applications and Offers carries 24 published figures read from 4 sources' own pages; the 15 published figures given by phase run from 0.70 to 94.90 percent, read 11 November 2026.
- 82 to 17
- 417 to 32
- 32 to 47
- 347 to 62
- 62 to 77
- 577 to 93
Bands
| Bucket | Value |
|---|---|
| 2 to 17 | 8 figures |
| 17 to 32 | 4 figures |
| 32 to 47 | 0 figures |
| 47 to 62 | 3 figures |
| 62 to 77 | 0 figures |
| 77 to 93 | 5 figures |
4 of the 13 named sources read in full publish a figure; 9 publish none, read 11 November 2026.
By phase and governance type
| Breakdown | Median | Range | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| phase secondary | 51.45 % | 4.9 to 89.2 % | 4 |
| phase primary | 7.5 % | 1.9 to 48.8 % | 3 |
| phase sixth form | 78 % (one figure) | one figure, no range | 1 |
| phase special | 53.1 % (one figure) | one figure, no range | 1 |
| governance type academy | 2.8 % (one figure) | one figure, no range | 1 |
| governance type foundation | 24.1 % (one figure) | one figure, no range | 1 |
| governance type community and voluntary controlled | 15.6 % (one figure) | one figure, no range | 1 |
Every figure, with its source
One row per published figure: the figure as the source's own page publishes it, the page, and the day it was read. A figure that is not on a page we read is not on this one.
The sentence each figure was read from (24)
- DfE - Primary and secondary school applications and offers, 2025-26, read 2026-11-11:
The proportion of secondary applicants receiving an offer of one of their top three preferred schools was 94.9%, a slight increase from 94.6% in 2024.
- DfE - Primary and secondary school applications and offers, 2025-26, read 2026-11-11:
Primary school applicants continue to be more likely to be offered their first preference school than secondary applicants (92.6% and 83.5% respectively).
- DfE - School pupils and their characteristics, read 2026-11-11:
83.9% of secondary schools are academies or free schools, accounting for 83.6% of secondary school pupils.
- DfE - Primary and secondary school applications and offers, 2025-26, read 2026-11-11:
The proportion of secondary applicants receiving an offer of their first choice school increased slightly from 82.9% in 2024 to 83.5% in 2025.
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
For secondary schools, 81% had one or more unfilled place (2,770 schools).
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
The proportion of schools with unfilled sixth form places (where the number of sixth form pupils on roll are lower than the sixth form capacity) was 78% in 2024/25, which has remained stable since 2020/21.
- DfE - School pupils and their characteristics, read 2026-11-11:
53.1% of state-funded special schools are academies or free schools, accounting for 49.7% of special school pupils
- DfE - School pupils and their characteristics, read 2026-11-11:
48.8% of primary schools are now academies or free schools, accounting for 49.9% of the primary school population.
- DfE - School pupils and their characteristics, read 2026-11-11:
While 48.2% of all schools were academies, over half of all pupils (60.4%) were attending an academy.
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
Foundation schools had the highest rate of successful appeals in 2025, at 24.1% of appeals heard.
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
5,903 secondary appeals were successful, representing 19.9% of those heard.
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
The number of state-funded secondary schools at or in excess of capacity was 651 in 2024/25 (19% of secondary schools).
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
1,595 primary appeals were successful, representing 17.7% of those heard.
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
By contrast, the rate for community and voluntary controlled schools has varied from 14.8% in 2021 to 19.1% in 2018, and is the lowest in 2025 at 15.6%.
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
15% of state-funded schools were at or in excess of capacity in 2024/25.
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
The proportion of primary schools at or in excess of capacity is at the lowest level since the data collection began at 14%, down from a high of 23% in 2014/15.
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
Across both primary and secondary schools, the total number of unfilled places was 1.2 million in 2024/25 (13% of total school places available).
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
At secondary school phase, 37,289 appeals were lodged (approximately 4.9% of secondary admissions) and 29,640 (approximately 3.9%) were heard.
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
Overall, the proportion of appeals heard was similar in 2016 (3.6%) and 2025 (3.9%), although it rose as high as 4.9% in 2020 before falling back over subsequent years.
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
Academies had the highest rate of appeals heard in 2025 at 2.8%.
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025, read 2026-11-11:
In 2025, 14,584 primary appeals were lodged (equating to approximately 1.9% of total primary admissions), and 8,999 (approximately 1.2% of admissions) were heard by an appeals panel.
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
The total anticipated number of primary pupils forecast by local authorities in England shows a decline of around 1% per year until the end of the forecast period (2029/30).
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
In secondary schools, there were 29,000 (0.7%) pupils in places that exceeded their school’s capacity.
- DfE - School capacity, read 2026-11-11:
In total, the number of pupils in places that exceeded their school's capacity is 47,000 (0.5% of places) in May 2025.
Read in full, publishes no figure
9 named sources were read in full on the dates shown and print no usable figure. They are counted, never filled in.
- DfE - applications and offers: methodology, read 2026-11-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- DfE - secondary and primary school applications and offers 2025 data set, read 2026-11-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- DfE - secondary and primary school applications and offers 2024 data set, read 2026-11-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- GOV.UK - Primary and secondary school applications and offers: 2026, read 2026-10-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- DfE - admission appeals methodology, read 2026-11-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- Scottish Government - school placing requests and appeal hearings: guidance for local authorities, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- Scottish Government - school placing requests and appeals: information for parents, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- Scottish Government - school education statistics collection, read 2026-10-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- the release per series, read 2026-11-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
Methodology
Every row is a verbatim sentence read from the named source's own page through our fetch service on the date shown, hash-pinned to the stored read (the sha of the page's visible text; the raw page is mirrored to R2).
4 of the 13 named sources that could be read published a usable figure; 9 published none and are recorded as not published, never filled in; 1 could not be read (blocked, dead or unreachable) and count nowhere.
The headline figures (median, minimum, maximum, quartiles) are over ONE figure per source for each breakdown it prices, in % (a source's median where its page yielded several accepted sentences for one breakdown), so a page that gives figures for several breakdowns gives one for each and N counts 16 figures, never sentences; 177 candidate sentence(s) were refused by a reviewer with the reason recorded.
The fuller derivation this dataset is chartered to grow into (not yet what the figures above are; they are each source's own published figure as read): the DfE, Scottish and Welsh releases stacked into one per-authority series - first-preference and any-preference offer rates, appeals lodged, heard and upheld, capacity and unfilled places, pupil numbers - and then the join that gives the parent a real answer: the offer rate and the appeal success rate of the authority beside the cut-off distance of the school they are asking about, with the falling-roll trend that says whether that distance is likely to widen.
Each figure is an observation sourced to the department that published it, dated, never recomputed as ours.
177 candidate sentences on these pages were refused by a reviewer; each refusal and its reason is recorded in the review ledger.
Sources (14)
- DfE - Primary and secondary school applications and offers, 2025-26(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DfE - applications and offers: methodology(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DfE - secondary and primary school applications and offers 2025 data set(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DfE - secondary and primary school applications and offers 2024 data set(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- GOV.UK - Primary and secondary school applications and offers: 2026(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DfE - Admission appeals in England, 2025(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DfE - admission appeals methodology(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DfE - School capacity(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DfE - School pupils and their characteristics(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Scottish Government - school placing requests and appeal hearings: guidance for local authorities(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Scottish Government - school placing requests and appeals: information for parents(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Scottish Government - school education statistics collection(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- House of Commons Library - School places and admissions in England(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- the release per series(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
Cite or embed this figure
The School Applications and Offers carries 24 published figures read from 4 sources' own pages; the 15 published figures given by phase run from 0.70 to 94.90 percent, read 11 November 2026.
4 of the 13 named sources read in full publish a figure; 9 publish none, read 11 November 2026.
School Applications and Offers, phase secondary: median 51.45 percent across 4 sources, read 11 November 2026.
School Applications and Offers, phase primary: median 7.50 percent across 3 sources, read 11 November 2026.
School Applications and Offers, phase sixth form: median 78 percent across 1 source, read 11 November 2026.
School Applications and Offers, phase special: median 53.10 percent across 1 source, read 11 November 2026.
School Applications and Offers, governance type academy: median 2.80 percent across 1 source, read 11 November 2026.
School Applications and Offers, governance type foundation: median 24.10 percent across 1 source, read 11 November 2026.
School Applications and Offers, governance type community and voluntary controlled: median 15.60 percent across 1 source, read 11 November 2026.
Cite as: "catchmentchecker.co.uk School Applications and Offers", updated 2026-11-11, https://catchmentchecker.co.uk/datasets/school-applications-and-offers/.
Download the CSV (24 rows, computed 2026-11-11)
Questions this data answers
What are the odds: what share of applicants got their first preference here, how full are the schools, and do appeals ever succeed?
The School Applications and Offers carries 24 published figures read from 4 sources' own pages; the 15 published figures given by phase run from 0.70 to 94.90 percent, read 11 November 2026.
What is the published figure for secondary in the School Applications and Offers?
For secondary, the median published figure is 51.45% across 4 figures from the sources' own pages, from 4.9% to 89.2%, read 11 Nov 2026.
What is the published figure for primary in the School Applications and Offers?
For primary, the median published figure is 7.5% across 3 figures from the sources' own pages, from 1.9% to 48.8%, read 11 Nov 2026.
Where do the figures in the School Applications and Offers come from?
Every figure is quoted from its source's own page and dated (last read 11 Nov 2026). 13 named sources were read and 4 publish a figure; the 9 that publish none are recorded as not published, never estimated.