The CEO of SWAT was on £150,000 p.a. that year, so he has had a 13% pay increase over 2015-2016, whilst teachers' pay was pegged at a 1% Increase.

I am not sure if the claim that the CEO of SWAT runs 17 schools in Kent was a mistake by The Sunday Times, by the PR company, or the Trust, but SWAT actually has just eight schools in Kent, three in Sittingbourne, two secondary and two primaries in nearby towns and another primary in Ashford. There are also a secondary school in Sussex and a primary in SE London. It may be that the two managed schools, along with a third in Sussex, are included, although not actually in the Trust, but this still only makes thirteen schools in total. In either case I cannot see how this profile requires a BMW to make the CEO's 'frequent long journeys safe and comfortable”', rather than use his own car and claim travel expenses. The mind boggles at three other Trust Executives also whizzing about and needing to make 'frequent long journeys safe and comfortable”'. 

For reference, apart from the out county schools, the two in Ashford are a whole 28 miles, or half an hour's journey from Sittingbourne, next furthest is Whitstable 23 miles away, with two Gravesham schools 22 miles distant. Clearly, appropriate planning of visits to these schools would minimise the stress caused by the journeys. 

Two of the four Senior Executives with their BMWs are presumably the Exexutive Head Secondary (salary £160,000)  and Executive Head Primary, with just seven and six schools respectively to oversee on their frequent long journeys. 

  Least

The significance of the ruling can be seen by the interviews I was invited to give on the subject. I was live on the BBC News Channel and Radio Five Live, but also gave two interviews for The Guardian and was quoted in The Times. On Radio Five, I was challenged about what is wrong with ‘weeding out’ lower performing students and had to explain its illegality and the damage it does to students thrown out mid-course. It is becoming clear that this misbehaviour sees thousands of students have their school careers illegally terminated at the end of Year 12. It should be noted that the ruling does not apply to Sixth Form and other Colleges which have different regulations allowing this to happen, or private schools which are subject to their own agreements with parents.

On the BBC News Channel, I read out part of the testimony of a parent whose daughter had been wrongly excluded the previous summer at the end of Year 12. “What happened to our daughter has had a massive impact on her; she is still limping along. To be honest her confidence was so damaged we don't know if she will ever believe in herself in the same way again”. What an indictment of the practice, but certainly not alone, as career dreams are shattered. 

The school website, which last year set out the academic requirements for entry to Year 13, now carries no such reference, suggesting it has discovered my interpretation of the law was correct. However, the school also boasts about its Outstanding A Level results, delivered on the back of seeing an alarming 15% of its pupil roll vanish in advance of these. I have had no similar contacts from Invicta families this year, suggesting the school has backed down in the knowledge of the illegality.  

This is a super selective grammar school which has also taken pride in its Outstanding A Level results: “In a record year at St Olave’s Grammar School, students achieved a stunning 96% A*/B grades. A total of 75% of all grades were at A*/A, 3 percentage points up on last year’s. 32 students gained straight A* grades in at least 3 subjects”. I assume that the process of eliminating lower performing students has also occurred in previous years and so is an integral part of achieving such excellent results.

The Guardian has followed this story closely with a number of articles about the school, which have piled the pressure on government and brought about this outcome, including: (1); (2); (3). 

The following table gives a breakdown of the data.   

Please note that the data in the FOI outcome I received from the EFA contained a few errors, which I have asked to be corrected. I will update this article when they are received, but am confident they will make little difference to the overall picture described here.

I recently published a parallel article about Complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) here, which shows a similar pattern of lack of success for Admission Appeal complaints, although this has declined from a few years back, when the LGO considered most complaints before the rapid expansion in academy numbers, and higher proportions were successful. 

The main differences between the two are firstly that the LGO is an independent organisation, using specialist officers, who have the skills to explore issues in detail, as exemplified by my recent complaint about Maidstone Girls’ Grammar School (publication awaited, eight months after the complaint was filed). This is because their investigators are also deployed at other times of the year on complaints about different matters.

By contrast the EFA uses officers otherwise engaged on different academy duties, who follow a template, which becomes far more mechanistic with little interaction with parents after they have filed the complaint. The advantage of this is that investigations are completed more quickly in general. This can mean that officers whose normal duties are supporting academies are used in judgment on the academies and the appeal panels they have selected.

The two Kent schools where the Investigation considered there was Maladministration without Injustice were High Halstow in Medway and Highworth Grammar in Kent, which along with Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School had five complaints, the most for any schools. Unlike with the LGO, there is no further information forthcoming about the maladministration. If injustice were established, the normal outcome is for a fresh appeal to take place in front of a new Panel.   

You will find the equivalent article and data for 2016 here; a preliminary article here; and the parallel Kent article here - which also records a fall in pupil numbers.

I would encourage parents to apply to go on the waiting list for any of their preferences that have not been offered, as there will be movement over the next four months. This is your best chance of getting a school of your choice, as chances at appeal are generally very low because of Infant Class Legislation. For 2016 entry, of 69 registered Primary appeals organised by Medway Council where Infant Class Legislation applied (the overwhelming majority), just one was upheld.

Note: the abbreviation LAAC refers to a child placed by Medway Council at a school they have not applied to, as all their own choices are full.

(C) -Chatham; (G) -Gillingham; (R) - Rochester

Overall there are 9% empty places in Chatham primary schools (up from 7% in 2016): St John’s Infants, with 16 of its 30 places vacant (full last year); Lordswood; Luton Infants; Oaklands and St Michael’s RC (but see Comment and Note below), all having more than ten places vacant.

As last year, there are seven schools with vacancies, although the proportion of empty places overall has trebled from 4% to 12% of the total available. Whilst Twydall Primary again has the most with 35 of its 90 places unfilled, two of the other schools with vacancies, Byron and Oasis Skinner Street both have 11 LAACs placed with them. Hempsted Infants which was heavily oversubscribed two years ago, now has 27 vacancies, probably still suffering from its link with Hempsted Juniors, which recently went through a difficult time (now resolved). The most recent OFSTED Report for both Byron and Twydall (now academies) placed them in Special Measures, and Featherby Infants probably suffer

Just three schools oversubscribed, two significantly. These were The Pilgrim School, 29 disappointed first choices, and second most oversubscribed school in Medway; and St Margaret’s at Troy Town CofE, last year’s most popular school, with 13.

Most Kent secondary schools are Academies, Foundation or Voluntary Aided schools, with the right to choose their Appeal Panel provider. For the past few years the secondary school split has been roughly equal between Panels provided by KCC and other providers. It takes me more time to collect the second group, including all the Medway secondaries, which will be covered in a second article later. I am currently updating the information I provide on individual secondary schools in Kent and Medway for, because of pressure on time, several pages are out of date. You will find historical appeal data on these pages and I am happy to update appeal data if requested and available. The article on all appeal outcomes in 2016 is here. There is little purpose in providing details of primary appeals for individual schools. 

In 2016, there were 29 appeals upheld out of 384 at the four schools, this year's increase in numbers and decrease in successes reflecting  the building pressure year on year from children living in London Boroughs. Have some sympathy for the Appeal Panel at Dartford Girls, with the school making a very strong case for admitting none of the 93 appellants, and the Panel sitting through eight consecutive weekdays without finding a single case strong enough to overcome the defence. There should of course be considerably more sympathy for the families who will have spent many stressful hours putting together a case that they thought would convince the Panel, every one without success. 

 At the other end of the scale, the easiest schools at which to win appeals were four girls’ grammars.  

The above figures are quite astonishing, in particular for the top two grammars in this list, Invicta and Simon Langton Girls’ whose Panels both put through more than twice as many girls as the county average of 37%.

For the 2016 appeals, just one other grammar school had a higher pass percentage than Invicta and SLGGS, which, combined with the further sharp increase this year, further undermines  any confidence in Panel objectivity and credibility. I am in no doubt they will have been encouraged by the schools to offer to such large numbers for whatever reason.  

In the case of MGGS and SLGGS, one reason for encouraging such large numbers is clear – low take up of places for September through the admission process, with both schools having nearly a quarter of their places unfilled. Who knows with Invicta which, through admitting high numbers of girls on appeal, created the largest grammar school intake in the county over the previous three years, this year promising to be even higher than 2016’s record of 244 girls (helped by 39 successful appeals, and an intake of 18 girls over the Planned Admission number). Sadly, as reported elsewhere, the school also manages to see the largest drop out rate in the county by the end of Year 13, many forced to leave early in order for the school to achieve good A Level and GCSE results.

However, I have no doubt that parents of girls benefitting from this Panel generosity will be delighted and think I am being churlish! Local non-selective schools losing their brightest pupils will be less enthusiastic. At the October 2016 census, an astonishing 40% of Year Seven pupils in Maidstone District schools attended local grammar schools, compared to a county average of 29%. 

Non-Selective School Appeals

Apart from the headline schools (above), Wrotham School, 60%, was the only one with more than 38% success rate.

The schools with most appeals were St George’s Foundation (64 appeals, 17% success rate) and King Ethelbert’s (40, 10%) both in Thanet, reflecting the pressure on places and the desire to avoid certain schools in the District, along with Valley Park, Maidstone (47,13%). Unsurprisingly, these are the three most oversubscribed NS schools in Kent, and success at appeal will require a very strong case, often with special circumstances, to satisfy the Panel.

The two other schools with low success rates are Brockhill Park (14 appeals, one upheld), and Wye Free School (18 appeals, 2 upheld).

Whilst I try and be as helpful as possible in providing initial advice, please do not take advantage of this. For some reason this year, I have had a number of unreasonable requests for grammar school ‘background information’ that are frankly pointless and irrelevant without knowing test scores, residence and purpose, and in addition would take up considerable time to respond. You may find the 11 Plus Exams Forum helpful for dealing with such enquiries. 

My Individual School Section to the right hand side, contains much information about schools. It is very time consuming to keep up to date, so if you would like more recent information about any school along the lines provided, please let me know and I will attempt to give it. 

You will find the details of MGSG's unlawful actions here, as the school sought to select the best performing external Sixth Form candidates by setting  an artificially high entry requirement of forecast grades, based on references from the candidates' home schools.  You will find details of the process operation below.  It appears that no such rule was applied to internal students who were admitted according to the legal requirements of the school admission policy, so this became discriminatory, which is also unlawful.

For 2016 entry, the school made 161 provisional offers from the 329 external applicants in March, the remainder being placed on a waiting list, including many who had grade forecasts that met the school’s official academic requirements. The admission arrangements state that all external candidates should be offered a meeting to discuss possibilities in January or February, but many were not invited, presumably having been discarded for provisional places well before offers were made.

In the end with a target figure for 200 internal and external candidates, just 174 were offered, including all on the waiting list who had not been put off, but had achieved required grades. This makes it a disastrous outcome, with a huge loss of 162 students from the potential internal and external pool.

The Appeal Panel failed its duties in a number of areas. The parent and appellant are referred to as Mr A and B in the sections below.

1. The Panel accepted the school’s illegal admission criteria as lawful.
2. The Panel focused on issues that were not germane to the case, relating to individual subjects, without examining the school’s case.
3. As a result, the Panel failed to focus on which courses were potentially available for B, or to see if an exception could be made in his case.
4. The Appeal Panel notes fail to explain how it determined the School case was reasonable. 

Unfortunately, by the time the Ombudsman found and ruled on the maladministration in the Appeal Panel decision, time had passed, and there was no point in arranging a fresh appeal as B had begun their Sixth Form course in another school.

The school did however offer a place to B to begin the Sixth Form course in September 2017, as their grades met revised admission criteria.  However, B quite reasonably did not wish to lose a year and has remained in their new school.

My comment on last year’s failure underlines the complete lack of urgency by the Council and included: ‘The new Cabinet Member for Children's Services (including Education), Andrew Mackness, was informed of the problem on Saturday. Unfortunately, he was unable to get Officers to respond until Monday morning, but still describing their action as prompt, although it surely should have been possible for someone from an Authority whose slogan is 'Serving You', to establish that at a minimum the total score was correct before then. A statement to this effect on Sunday would have saved a great amount of grief, as I know from the torrent of emails I have received ‘.

For those unfamiliar with the Council’s appalling performance relating to the Medway Test over the years, a browse of this website using the search term ‘Medway’ will enlighten you.  

The Medway Test Pass Score of 495, although below last year’s 513 does not mean the standard is any lower. The standard required is the same. The difference reflects the number of Medway children taking the test and their abilities.

I run a Telephone Consultation Service to support and advise families living in Medway or Kent Local Authority areas, who are considering Review, looking at secondary school options, or thinking about chances of success at appeal, for schools in Kent or Medway Local Authorities.  

The pages of this website also contain much free information about each of these issues

You will find details of each of the possibilities via the links below, or to the right of this article. You may wish to start with the page on Can I help you?

Telephone Consultation Service

Medway Grammar School Review and Appeal

This page contains information on each grammar school’s response to unsuccessful Review decisions

Admission to Medway Secondary Schools

Admission to Medway Grammar Schools

Individual Medway Secondary Schools. This contains information on each secondary school and academy. I am currently updating these pages. If the one you wish to consult is not up to date, please let me know and I will attend to it. 

These pages also contain links to pages providing comment and data relating to school admissions....

The relevant Kent pages can be reached via the links on the Right Hand side of this article, Kent Test results not being sent out until 12^th October.

Please Note that this article has been produced to meet the Thursday 4 p.m. deadline and is likely to be revised at my leisure, if I have any over the next three weeks!

If you wish to contact me please read the information at the foot of the page and use the Contact Me Form together with all the information I request. If it is a simple question I will attempt to respond to it directly. 

There were 16,766 children registered for the Kent Test for admission to grammar school in September 2017 (15,253 in 2017), with 15,937 actually taking the Test (14,349 in 2016). Of these, 7,407 (6,537 in 2016) children passed the test, of whom 4,650 (4,369) were from Kent schools, and 2,145 (1,966) were from out of County.

Some 350 children are eligible for a single grammar school through success in the Dover, Shepway, Mayfield (Gravesend Girls) or Highsted (Sittingbourne Girls) Tests.

Notes: (1) I don't yet have data for boys and girls differentiated for this year, but will include this as soon as it is available

        (2)  'Other' includes children who are home educated. 

        (3) Some totals do not add up, as late adjustments were made. 

The main pressure areas are West and North West Kent and Whitstable/Herne Bay. In West Kent all Kent girls should get a grammar school place in the District, not always the one of their choice. The boys’ situation may be more difficult, with no annex, the number of boys’ places being fewer and two of the three schools being super-selective. Some years all boys get a local place on allocation in March, but I suspect that this year, as several times recently not all will be successful first time round, usually from North Sevenoaks heading northwards, or else out towards Maidstone. There is always a shakedown in West Kent and some boys may need to go to appeal, but in past years, all have been successful at one of the schools, to the best of my knowledge.

North West Kent appears to have the greatest pressure, caused by enormous numbers applying from London Boroughs, Dartford Grammar turning away 257 first choices last year (and rising year on year), and along with the girls rejecting local applicants whose pass scores were not high enough (disgracefully and contrary to promises made to the Schools Adjudicator when he approved their new arrangements). However, the two Wilmington Grammars now give priority to mainly Kent children and although they have increased greatly in popularity should pick up all local children who have qualified and choose them.

Whitstable/Herne Bay is also often difficult, with no local grammar school, and extensive building development in the area, some  boys having to settle for a grammar school in Thanet. However, the mixed Barton Court in Canterbury only just fills, now it has expanded to an intake of  150, although recent controversies surrounding Simon Langton Girls may heap additional pressure on BC. 

In other areas the situation can be fluid, and the 5231 places can expand further,  with temporary increases as schools measured demand and capacity.

There will always be horror stories about pressure on grammar school places -they make good media copy, especially with last year's abortive proposal to expand grammar school places (but has been happening for years without legislation and will no doubt continue), but the reality is that eight of the 32 Kent grammar schools had vacancies last March on allocation, spread across the county apart from the West and NW.

 It is apparent that the historical reason for the bias towards girls in the Medway Test is through the English component, a single piece of Free Writing, which is not age standardised in the same way as the VR and maths, which both produce little gender bias. The only solution I can see is that a new type of marking scheme, set this year after the previous marking team was dismissed somehow reverses the bias.

Another issue that has arisen with the Free Writing Assessment is the standardisation system that is applied. To quote the NFER,  the country’s leading research institute ‘Standardised scores from most educational tests cover the same range from 70 to 140’. The occasional pupil dips a point below or above this range, but I have never come across one in the Medway Test. This year for some reason at least two boys without a bad record scored 65 & 67, way adrift, of the base line, and at least one girl scored 146, way above the normal cut off.

Just one school, Phoenix Junior Academy, had no one taking the test, and one small school had no successes.   

The number of ooc candidates for Medway grammar schools continues to rise far faster than the local population. It is down to two main factors, primarily the caravan rolling down from London Boroughs, where there is an inexhaustible supply of families seeking grammar school places for their children. First stop are the four Dartford grammar schools, nearest the county boundary and easily accessible by rail. With a combined 600 children failing to gain access in spite of placing one of the schools as first preference, many will have put the Gravesend grammars on as a back up. As these are mainly second preferences, it is impossible to identify the pressure on them, but again many are thwarted. Gravesend Grammar, admitting over a quarter of its pupils from London, when it aspires to be a school serving the local community, has reduced its PAN from 180 to 150 for 2018 entry. That just leaves Medway grammars, and social media sites reveal that many put the schools down without even having visited them (as also can happen in Gravesend) and know nothing about them.

The issue is exacerbated by an additional considerable number of children who don’t feature in this table, who qualify for the two Chatham grammar schools by virtue of success in the Kent Test, without needing to take the Medway Test.

Rainham Mark Grammar School, up to now super-selective, happily is turning against the tide of chasing every higher grades by selecting and retaining only the highest performers, as described elsewhere on this site. From September 2018, the school has abandoned high scores and is giving priority to those children who live nearest, which means the few London families who will be offered places will be siblings of current pupils. 

The second issue is of course wider awareness of opportunities with an ever increasing proportion of Kent children living in towns such as Gravesend and Sittingbourne taking the Medway Test as a backup.

I suspect none of this will affect decision making this year, and anticipate the ever increasing ooc effect will ensure another year of high oversubscription.  

However, an email from the DfE sent earlier this week fully explains the U-Turn in that it states explicitly‘Pupils must be educated at the school that they are registered at for at least some of the time’.  It is reasonable to assume that instructions have been sent by either the Regional Schools Commissioner responsible for local academies, or the Education Funding Agency with national oversight to force the change of heart.

According to the school, it has now been able to accommodate the boys because there is finally room for them, in a tone which suggests the families should feel grateful. No mention of the reason, nor apology for the unlawful actions, nor apology for the appalling treatment of the boys who are sent to the wrong school in the Victory Academy uniform, taught by staff who are ‘being trained in how to teach grammar school ability children’, on a different curriculum, but offered as a sop that they can turn out for Holcombe Sports teams, although distinguished by being dressed in Victory Academy uniform.

Accountability rests with the top echelons of TSAT, to whom the nominal headteacher of Holcombe has to refer for quite routine decisions about her school.

Instead, in a quite bizarre move, this undersubscribed school with 42 vacancies on allocation in March, second highest figure for grammar schools in Kent, has introduced new oversubscription criteria for September 2018 entry, to try and boost its image, although the school’s reputation surely needs to improve if it is ever to apply them. After the required first priority of Looked After Children now comes a new criterion, ‘Governor places: The top 30 students on rank order of the TOTAL aggregate score on the 11+ assessment tests’, which obviously requires more than 180 families to be competing for places in order for this to take effect. Secondly, comes the common criterion of 'siblings', with a very odd definition of sibling: ‘a brother or sister attending either Maidstone Grammar School for Girls or Maidstone Grammar School when the child starts’. However, there is no formal connection with Maidstone Grammar School, the link is not reciprocated by MGS, there appears no advantage to the school, even if it is ever applied. So why put it in?

Even after I initially identified the illegality in the Autumn of 2016, the school has made no effort to put in place appropriate criteria for external applicants to the Sixth Form. The rules read simply: ‘Offers will be made on the basis of predicted performance at GCSE’ with the levels defined in the Published Admission Criteria. However, with no clear definition of what level these are set at (which is where the school went wrong previously), no potential student should legally be turned away at provisional offer time next Spring.  Sadly, in all this I can see no pattern of logical thinking, for which responsibility lies with the school leadership and governors. As a Foundation, stand alone non-academy, the school has no excuse of responsibilities being blurred.

This is also a grey area for a number of other schools, but they have not at present been in the spotlight like MGGS, with its illegally imposed artificially high requirements exposed.

National coverage of the scandal followed after it was picked up by parents at another grammar school with a national profile, St Olave’s in Bromley, who had seen my Invicta articles.

Whilst there will inevitably be a few schools that continue to try and impose the illegal exclusions, it is clear that others are developing new tactics to try and strip out those who are not heading for the top grades. Two main methods.

Firstly, by raising the admission level for entry to the Sixth Form, to reduce the number of students likely to achieve lower grades.  Sadly, the number of alternatives is also reducing in Kent, with only West Kent College at Tonbridge offering an FE route, and a number of non-selective schools cutting back on A Level provision for financial reasons. I find this reduction in opportunity appalling with schools sacrificing student careers in the chase for high grades. I plan to look at this in more detail later.

Secondly, as an alternative to expulsion, some schools are now introducing ‘contracts’ for lower performing pupils at the beginning of Year 13, with an implied imperative that if they don’t sign they should leave. One that I have seen requires the student to accept that if they are not heading for at least a ‘C’ Grade then they won’t be entered for the A Level exam, but can enter as a private candidate which, if not unlawful, is certainly immoral.

Please note that, as last year, these Provisional results are issued now to inform parents making secondary school choices. For the 2016 results, a number of schools' results were amended as students in certain categories were removed from the data. Few of these changes made a significant difference, so the current guidance is pretty reliable. 

Both Progress 8 and Attainment 8 are measured across eight subjects, English maths, 3 qualifications including sciences, computer science, history, geography and languages, and 3 other additional approved qualifications.  for Progress 8 there is a target national average score of 0, with most schools being between +1 and -1. The government floor standard, or expectation is to be above -0.5, in which case “the school may come under increased scrutiny and receive additional support”. and eight Kent secondary schools fail to meet this, including Simon Langton Boys. There are further details of the outcomes below.  

At the foot of the table, are seven non-selectives who are below the government floor standard and must be concerned at their performance which may well reflect on teaching and learning. These will be picked up by OFSTED on their next Inspection which will be brought forward, using this measure as a new key standard. Five have been here for both years of the new scheme: Hartsdown; Royal Harbour; Aylesford; Holmesdale and Spires, all of which apart from Holmesdale also occupying places at the foot of the Attainment table.   Of the 'well below average' schools, Hartsdown in Thanet, was featured in my Tough Love Academies article, along with Oasis Academy, Isle of Sheppey, both serving areas with high levels of social deprivation. Royal Harbour Academy is also based in Thanet along with Hartsdown. Aylesford  and Holmesdale  were both oversubscribed a few years a go, but have been in rapid decline and the most recent headteachers have departed. Aylesford is now to become an Academy sponsored by Wrotham School. Spires Academy has struggled since long before it became an academy, having no strong catchment in the small community of Sturry, near Canterbury, had a disastrous period being run by the previous Headteacher of controversial Simon Langton Girls Grammar, who has now resigned and is now to become part of the E21C (Education for the 21st Century) Academy Trust in Bromley. Astor College in Dover has been declining for some years, with poor GCSE performances, culminating in a  Warning  about unacceptable standards from the Department for Education last year, along with Spires Academy.   

Most Kent secondary schools are Academies, Foundation or Voluntary Aided schools, with the right to choose their Appeal Panel provider. For the past few years the secondary school split has been roughly equal between Panels provided by KCC and other providers. I am currently updating the information I provide on individual secondary schools in Kent and Medway but, because of pressure on time, several pages are out of date. You will find historical appeal data on these pages and I am happy to update appeal data if requested and available. The article on all appeal outcomes in 2016 is here. I don't collect details of Reception appeals for the small number of individual primary schools, that organise their own appeals, as success rates are likely to be equally low. 

Cranbrook School admitted 30 children at age 11 for the first time, alongside its normal 13 plus entry, reduced in numbers from three to two forms of entry. There were no successful appeals at 11 plus, perhaps partly because with just one form entry there is little flexibility. At 13 plus, two of the five appeals were upheld, all for pupils who had been found selective by the Cranbrook Test.

In 2016, The Harvey Grammar, Folkestone, upheld just five out of 41 appeals. It was able to add an extra form for 2017, when 32 out of 36 appeals were successful!

At Queen Elizabeth’s Faversham, 22 appellants had passed the Kent Test. Just five of these were offered places out of the 18 appeals upheld.

As normal, Simon Langton Grammar Boys offered eight places on appeal; all to boys who had passed the Kent Test. 

For Tonbridge Grammar all four successful appeals were from the 51 appellants who were grammar qualified.

At Tunbridge Wells Girls, three of the four successful appeals were from the six girls who were grammar qualified.

In Medway, at Holcombe Grammar 25 of the 30 successful appeals were for Medway boys. At three of the other grammars, all those appeals upheld were from children who had passed the Medway Test: Fort Pitt, all three were from the 36 appellants who had passed the Medway Test; Rainham Mark, all 6 from the 49 grammar qualified; Rochester Grammar, all five from the 67 girls who had passed. These three have had a similar pattern for some years. 

As a result, just ten non selective schools organised their own appeals across Kent and Medway, with a very low figure of 21% of appeals upheld.

All the Leigh Academy Trust schools in Dartford offered additional places in March, so there was no need for appeals at any of their four schools.

Apart from the three schools named in the introduction, all schools saw below the 21% average success rate!

Both Knole Academy and Rainham School for Girls which normally hold appeals were able to accommodate all pupils who persevered with their applications, without holding appeals.

The other five schools that held appeals were: Charles Dickens; Fulston Manor; Ursuline College; Strood Academy; and Thomas Aveling.

Kent County Council has a rolling five year Schools Commissioning Plan, which sets out all its plans for new school places across the county, including the planning basis for these two Districts. One critical issue that is not discussed in the Plan, and which I don't look at below except for the Maidstone situation, is that of school transport. Many of the roads in both Districts already become completely clogged with traffic at school opening and closing times, and any expansions can only add to the difficulties. This has also led to Council Planning Approval delays in other parts of the county with several new Free School proposals.

For entry this September, the additional places provided were at: Royal Harbour Academy, 31 places; Ursuline College, 30 places; and St George’s CE Foundation School, 10 places. For Royal Harbour, 89 of the total 231 places offered were for children who hadn’t even applied for the school but were unable to get places elsewhere, as described in my previous article on allocations, where I described Thanet as ‘The most problematic district in Kent by some way’.

For 2018 entry, a 2FE Permanent extension to Ursuline College, the smallest of the Thanet non-selective schools with an admission number of 150, is being discussed, after two other schools had backed away from the idea. KCC will need to agree with other local schools for temporary expansions, but has no enforcement power, and one can think of at least one which could be severely damaged by being overextended.

For 2019, even if the Ursuline College proposal is approved, another 5FE of temporary expansion is needed, the KCC Paper describing this as ‘high risk’.

Alternatively, if approval for the new Free School were given for a date between 2019 through to 2021, the first cohorts could be housed in the now closed Walmer School premises, at the southern end of Deal, 16 miles along the coast. The concept of transporting the whole cohort daily for at least a year is likely to have a large and unpredictable effect on the ethos of a new school, let alone the significant transport costs. An additional problem is that according to the Code for School Admissions, the likelihood is that local Walmer children would have first priority, which may be attractive to them, given the unpopularity of the local SchoolsCompany Goodwin Academy. This would further undermine the project.

One potential problem with the Royal School for the Deaf site is that it is of limited size, so there would be no room for a Sixth Form. In one sense this is decreasing as an issue, as confirmed at the Cabinet Meeting by Mr Leeson, Corporate Director of Education. For small school Sixth Forms are becoming increasingly financially unviable, with a number of other non-selective schools having already closed down their Sixth Forms, although this surely damages their attraction for some families.  

None of these proposals fully address new housing developments already in the pipeline, that can only increase the pressure on places, so that KCC is already exploring possibilities for a second new Thanet secondary school, even though the first one is not yet confirmed.

Plans for a new Free School in TW to open in September 2019 included the stage of a site being identified, but fell because there were no applications at all for sponsorship. Government policy on land acquisition changed and, as a result the proposed site was lost, putting plans right back to the beginning. Further delays in the government programme mean that a new school cannot come on stream before September 2021 at the earliest, leaving a massive hole in provision.

Whilst no extra places were needed for September 2017, every TW school was full on allocation, omitting High Weald Academy in Cranbrook, but technically in TW District.

For September 2018 the following arrangements are proposed but are not all necessarily finalised. 

As noted above, there is no guarantee these places would all go to Kent children. The hope for Tunbridge Wells Boys Grammar is that they don’t fill the extra places with out of county children, as each year there are a good number of successful local admission appeals, with some strong cases always getting through - 34% of appeals being upheld in 2017.

For 2019, 4.3 FE permanent places are needed and proposed, some of which would consolidate the above temporary expansions, which will all mean a commitment to permanent building. In addition, a further 120  temporary places are needed. 2FE of the permanent expansion is likely to be at Bennett Memorial, already under consultation, but which would certainly dilute the current strong Christian requirement for most admissions. Any new building is of course not just to cover the Year 7 intake, but over time needs to take in seven years of intake to cover the whole time students may be at the school. In this case it would amount to around 14 new classrooms along with specialist rooms, which requires considerable land although it does bring the opportunity to provide new facilities for the school without the need to find additional funding.

The Paper is silent on any other thoughts for the next two years and, with just three non-selective schools in the town, all Academies, one can only speculate which of these schools will agree to contribute to a further major expansion year on year, which will inevitably change their character.

In nearby Tonbridge the Judd School, a super-selective grammar, which just five years ago had an Admission Number of 120 boys, is now proposed to have yet another 1FE added for 2019, taking the intake up to 210 places annually, almost doubling in size over this period. It has already changed the character of its intake to give priority mainly to Kent boys, each expansion inevitably seeing the high level of selectivity decrease a little. The three increases to the West Kent boys' grammar schools will both keep the ratio of selective to non-selective places close across West Kent, but also right the balance between boys’ and girls’ grammar provision after the opening of the Sevenoaks Annexe for girls this summer. Is it an acknowledgement that, given the current weakness of government, it may now be impossible to force through a change to expand the Sevenoaks Annexe to become co-educational? 

Let us be clear. Permanent exclusion is the right decision in many cases where schools have exhausted all strategies to control a situation.  

Government Policy states that:‘Permanent exclusion should only be used as a last resort, in response to a serious breach or persistent breaches of the school's behaviour policy; and where allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school. The decision to exclude a pupil must be lawful, reasonable and fair. Schools have a statutory duty not to discriminate against pupils on the basis of protected characteristics, such as disability or race. Schools should give particular consideration to the fair treatment of pupils from groups who are vulnerable to exclusion’.

The break down in accountability of schools, especially academies, combined with the pressure on them to achieve the best possible results at Key Stage 2, GCSE and A Level, has led to soaring exclusion levels in some schools, and alternative methods of ‘off-rolling’, some illegal. Eight out of ten permanent exclusions are for children with a special education need or disability, in spite of government imperatives to avoid these wherever possible. 

Other casualties are teachers, trying to manage increasing levels of special education need across a wide spectrum of difficulties. The demands of some schools to deliver results at all cost leads to little professional development for new teachers, within a sink or swim culture. Management structures can see senior staff glad to be out of the classroom, offering little support to struggling teachers leaving them isolated. Such factors contribute to record numbers of teachers leaving the profession, with over a quarter of new teachers leaving within the past three years. Quite simply we cannot afford this rate of attrition.

Some claim the increase in exclusions is purely down to declining behaviour standards, but one only has to look at differences in exclusion rates between schools with similar profiles, between Local Authorities, and talk to families as I do, to put the major responsibility for some dramatic increases down to individual school and Local Authority attitudes to problems.

After I highlighted the very high Kent number of 210 permanent exclusions for 2011-12, 41 of whom were SEN statemented, the consequent pressure has seen numbers tumble over the intervening period to 66 in 2015-16, of whom 14 were statemented. However, I recall a discussion with a Kent headteacher some years ago, whose record exclusion levels I had highlighted, thanking me as he considered it a good advertisement of the high standards he maintained in his school. 

Travelling in the opposite direction is Medway, with just 22 permanent exclusions in 2011-12, fewer than five of whom were statemented. For 2015-16 the figure had soared to 81, the highest rate in the SE of England, and considerably higher than Kent. One school accounted for 22 of these exclusions, over a quarter of the total. 

A previous article reported on all local OFSTED Reports  between September and  Easter.

You will find further details and the latest Local Authority and National outcomes below. Secondary school outcomes and further details about each school, including admission outcomes, appeals, and GCSE performance are shown for Kent and Medway. I reported on last year’s OFSTED performance for secondary schools here.

The following links will take you to further details about individual: Kent Secondary Schools; and Medway Secondary Schools, although some sections are in process of updating.

Academies: The Abbey School; Ebbsfleet Academy; Hayesbrook School; Homewood School; Leigh UTC; Marsh Academy; Mascalls Academy; St Anselm’s RC School; St George’s CofE School, Gravesend; St Simon Stock Catholic School; Spires Academy (up from Requires Improvement); Ursuline College; Wilmington Academy. I

‘Requires Improvement’ Schools: in Kent these are all academies: Dover, Christ Church Academy; High Weald Academy, Cranbrook; Oasis Isle of Sheppey Academy; and Towers, Ashford. 

I commented on the OFSTED Report of Leigh UTC in my previous article.

Spires Academy in Sturry, inspected in May, appears to have emerged from a dark period, having been run by the controversial Executive Head of Simon Langton Grammar School for Girls, now resigned, during which it  was issued with a Warning Notice from government over unacceptably low standards. It has now been taken over by the E21C Academy Trust in Bromley.

Nexus Foundation Special School in Tonbridge, was found to Require Improvement, having changed its name from Ridgeway School, which had previously been Kent’s only Special School in Special Measures. Presumably the name change is an attempt to shake off the school's poor reputation.

The Valence School, a residential special school, all children also having with physical difficulties, was also assessed as ‘Require Improvement’, but down from ‘Good’, in a critical report. This will inevitably have been influenced by a Social Care OFSTED Inspection in March that failed the school’s Boarding provision.

Four of Medway’s five Special Schools are academies, along with one Free Special School, and Bradfields Academy has become one of three to hold an Outstanding OFSTED performance, up from Good, in the only Medway Special School Inspection this year.  

Two years ago, a previous OFSTED Inspection found the school was ‘Requiring Improvement’ an assessment I considered bizarre at the time, given the strong postive findings it found at the school. The following year I wrote about an Interim OFSTED that ‘I have now been sent a copy of the first Monitoring Inspection which is carried out on all RI schools, and it appears to describe a completely different school, on the verge of 'Outstanding' as this Inspection team clearly had difficulty in coping with the previous result’

Canterbury Academy and its Executive Principal, Phil Karnavas, are well known to be uncompromising in their aims, and as a result often tread on official toes.

The school is described as: 'a unique, large, vibrant and increasingly popular school, with a quite exceptional curriculum delivered in outstanding facilities. They never sway from doing what they believe is right for a pupil, regardless of any reduction to their headline measures.'

A phrase I never thought to read in an official Report quotes the Chairman of the Board of Directors as describing "the ‘moral imperative’ of giving all pupils, whatever their backgrounds, the best possible education so they will leave ‘able to live a safe, healthy and fulfilling life".

Year on year, the school is oversubscribed but is determined, if at all possible, to admit all pupils who wish to join it, which is certainly not popular with other local schools, and the KCC. So, for 2016 admission, the last year for which I have figures at present, it offered all its 210 places, leaving 33 first choices disappointed. By September, having lost a large number of pupils to grammar school appeals (the norm in Canterbury) it still started the year with 228 pupils, having offered places to all pupils who persisted in their applications, without needing to go to appeal.

Amongst many other achievements, this philosophy has led the school to its unique Sixth Form, about which also I wrote last year: ‘Canterbury Academy achieved two unique accolades from students, with 45 choosing to join the Academy Sixth Form from grammar schools, only the two grammar schools admitting more students from NS schools. This intake to Canterbury Academy has contributed to the most astonishing increase of any school in 2015, having the third highest increase of any school at 91, taking its Year 12 roll to 306, and sixth form total to 539, just edging Dartford Grammar as the largest Sixth Form in the whole of Kent, and the only Kent non-selective school to increase its numbers into the Sixth’. According to OFSTED: ‘Close to two thirds of the school’s Year 11 pupils stay on into the sixth form and make up about half the total number in the sixth form. The other sixth formers come from over 50 different schools’, an astonishing statistic.

Another uncompromising policy is baldly summarised: ‘The school does not permanently exclude pupils and very rarely has to apply fixed term exclusions because it uses its own staff and facilities…A pupil observed that one short detention for interrupting the flow of a lesson is usually the only one that a pupil experiences’. As regular browsers will be aware, I am highly critical of many other schools that use exclusion as a tactic to improve GCSE performance by removing pupils unlikely to deliver good results. Another quote: ‘They never sway from doing what they believe is right for a pupil, regardless of any reduction to their headline measures’. No room for compromise there.

The Canterbury High School uses three off-site facilities: – Phoenix House (Herne Bay), where a very small number of pupils at risk of permanent exclusion study life skills programmes and are supported to return to mainstream school. – Riverside Youth Centre, for pupils in Years 9 to 11 whose learning needs, in addition to English and mathematics, are best suited by taking practical, workrelated subjects. – The Chaucer site, which temporarily houses some of the studio space for sixth form students in the performing arts college, and physical education lessons for Phoenix House pupils.

The school’s off-site alternative provision is under the auspices of the Canterbury Multi Academy Trust. However, the majority of pupils attending Phoenix House are enrolled at other schools. They access this alternative curriculum provision as the Canterbury Multi-Academy Trust provides it for all schools in the area on behalf of the local authority. The school also shares some of its on-site facilities with pupils in a local special school.

Several on-site, separate buildings have industry-standard facilities and equipment, used, for example, by performing arts, sports, construction, and hair and beauty courses. The Enterprise and Employability College houses several of these facilities, as does a new, as yet unnamed, building. There are extensive outdoor facilities for sports, including a multi-million pound, purpose-built sports centre with an integrated fitness suite and a tennis centre.

The academy is open for pupils and students from 8am to 6pm and many of its facilities, including the Riverside Youth Centre, are shared with the community, largely, but not exclusively, outside of school hours.

The school’s partnership with the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys contributes to ‘A grammar school band for boys and girls’. The partnership, in its sixth year, is well embedded with groups of high-attaining pupils from both schools learning together in some subjects. The senior vice-principal of Langton continues to work full-time at Canterbury Academy.