Please Note: Still being finalised, but published to be in place for 4 p.m.
The Kent Test results have set the pass mark at an aggregate of 332, slightly higher than last year, with a requirement to score 108 on each of the three sections - English, mathematics, and reasoning, slightly lower than 2019’s 110 on each. The level of pass marks is no indication of difficulty in the Test, rather a complex standardisation of raw scores against a national sample of children, comparing like ages with each other. The intention is to select 21% of the Kent cohort by this method for automatic selection along with another four per cent by Headteacher Assessment, as explained here, making up a target of 25%. In the event this year, 25.4% of the cohort, comprising all of Kent’s Year six cohort in primary schools, added to all Kent private school pupils who took the Test, were found selective, down from last year’s 26.6%.
Although there was a fall of 522 in the number of children taking the Test overall this year, 194 additional children were found selective over the 2019 figure. This is purely due to an increase in the number of out of county passes, with 74 fewer Kent children found selective, details in the table below.
The Test, taken a month later than planned because of the Coronavirus pandemic, will certainly have seen a slightly different profile of children passing as explained in previous articles here, most recently here. However, until I get more detailed data on outcomes later this year it will not be clear how different. The KCC Press Release describing the Test carefully focuses on the view of Richard Long, Cabinet Member for Education that: ‘Kent has done everything in its power to ensure that families were given a fair and safe way to apply for Kent Secondary schools this year’ referring to this fact twice, but without mentioning what KCC had done if anything to make the Kent Test as fair as possible.
Please note that this article has been produced to meet the Thursday 4 p.m. deadline for release of results and is likely to be revised at my leisure, if I have any over the next three weeks!
I explore all these matters further below, along with sections on Sources of Information and Advice on admissions and appeals, Out of County Children, and Pressure Points.
There is considerable information and advice on admissions and appeals to Kent schools, including grammar schools specifically, on the right-hand side of this page together with links to important articles. In response to multiple enquiries each year you cannot: appeal the Kent Test Results; challenge the Head Teacher Assessment; or arrange a late HTA. What you can do is apply for one or more grammar schools and then appeal against decision of the schools to turn you down if your child did not pass the Kent Test. You will find the parallel article for the Medway test here.
Please do not try and post comments about individual situations. This is not a forum. I am afraid I have retired from offering individual advice.
KCC have made individual test scores available to parents who registered online from shortly after 1 p.m. today Thursday 26th November. As last year, I shall be publishing a second article later when I receive more data from KCC. You will find initial figures released by KCC below, mainly taken from the official press release, together with further information. I find that the information articles on this website (right hand side of this article and every page of the website), with links below, answer the majority of questions I receive.
The proportion of Kent boys being found suitable for grammar school by the selection process has been slightly higher than that for girls in recent years; for the 2019 Test, it was 27.1% for boys and 26.2% for girls, but I don't have this year's data yet.
Although KCC cannot guarantee every Kent child who has passed a place in a Kent grammar school (and not necessarily of their choice), there were few reported cases in recent years of grammar qualified Kent children who were looking for a place not being offered one, the exceptions last year being the Greenhithe/Ebbsfleet area of NW Kent, and in rural Thanet, with some boys around Herne Bay also having to go to appeal. Further thoughts below.
| Kent Test Results 2020 For Admission in 2021 | |||||||
| Kent Schools | Out of County & Other | ||||||
| Boys | Girls | Total | Boys | Girls | Total | Grand Total | |
| Sat Kent Test 2020 | 15,634 | ||||||
Assessed Suitable For Grammar Admission 2021 | 4867 | 3062 | 7929 | ||||
| Sat Kent Test 2019 | 5991 | 5770 | 11361 | 2483 | 2312 | 4795 | 16156 |
Assessed Suitable For Grammar Admission 2020 | 2588 | 2383 | 4941 | 1474 | 1494 | 2794 | 7735 |
| Sat Kent Test 2018 | 5837 | 5465 | 11302 | 2657 | 2615 | 5712 | 16656 |
Assessed Suitable For Grammar Admission 2019 | 2319 | 2283 | 4641 | 1530 | 1535 | 3065 | 7706 |
| Sat Kent Test 2017 | 5185 | 5528 | 10713 | 4832 | 15937 | ||
Assessed Suitable For Grammar Admission 2018 | 2138 | 2277 | 4650 | 2757 | 7407 | ||
For further information, you will find Oversubscription and vacancies in Kent Grammar schools for September 2020 provides considerable information on pressure of places, as does the page on Kent Grammar School Applications for Entry in 2021. There is a series of pages on Individual Kent Secondary Schools, which also contain additional information on each school, including take-up of places, OFSTED Ratings, Examination Performance, and Appeal Statistics together with other important news, comment and information. I am afraid I am behind in updating some of these pages (look at update date in top left-hand corner), so if you would like more up recent information on a particular school, please let me know. Also try entering the name of the school you are interested in in the Website Search engine: this may provide other news, comment and information articles about that school over recent years.
I have now published an article on school appeals statistics for secondary and primary schools for entry in September 2020, with appeals data for individual schools in the Individual Schools section. In the meantime you may wish to consult the relevant information pages for Kent Grammar School Appeals or Oversubscription Appeals, the latter for both non-selective and grammar schools,
I suspect the overwhelming majority of those 2386 OOCs who passed the Kent Test but were not offered places in Kent grammars will have had other preferences met, including the M25 tourists, whose poor children take grammar school tests all around the ring.
The main pressure areas are usually 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, because of the opening of the Weald of Kent annexe. The boys’ situation has eased considerably with additional places being put into all three schools and the two super-selectives, Judd and Skinners, now both giving priority for most of their places to local boys. There is always a shakedown in West Kent and some grammar qualified boys may need to go to appeal as in previous years, but all have been successful at one of the schools in previous years, to the best of my knowledge.
North West Kent continues to have the greatest pressure, caused by enormous numbers applying from London Boroughs, Dartford Grammar turning away 409 grammar qualified first choices last year (and rising year on year, up from 336 in 2019) 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 mainly to Kent children and although they have increased greatly in popularity should pick up all local children who have qualified and choose them, as the number of out of county siblings continues to fall. Last year there was a specific problem for boys and girls in the Greenhithe/Ebbsfleet area, but in the end, I believe that all who wished secured places at one of the Gravesend grammars or at Wilmington.
Whitstable/Herne Bay has been difficult for boys, with no local grammar school and extensive building development in the area, and from 2019 Simon Langton Boys has increased its number of places by 30 to 150 which appeared to eliminate the problem for 2019 entry, but it returned in 2020. There is not a problem in capacity for girls in the city as Simon Langton Girls always has vacancies, although this may change with the new premises being built.
There was a particular and unexpected problem in Thanet for 2020 entry, as explained here. It is not clear if appeals outcomes resolved the problems.
In other areas the situation can be fluid, and the 5550 places will certainly expand further, with temporary increases in some schools as schools measure demand and capacity.
There will always be horror stories about pressure on grammar school places -they make good media copy, especially with proposals to expand grammar school places (but expansion has been happening for years without legislation and will no doubt continue). The reality is that six of the 32 Kent grammar schools had vacancies last March on allocation for the second year running, spread across the county apart from the West and NW, although most of these will have been filled after appeal, along with additional places found in other grammar schools.