Each year, I collect Appeal data for every secondary school in Kent and Medway that has Admission Appeals for Year 7 entry, and for those primary schools whose appeals are organised by the two Local Authorities.
Success rates at admission appeals for Kent and Medway grammar schools have fallen to 35% for 2016, a drop for the third successive year, with chances of success at primary school appeals remaining low.
For grammar schools, numbers range from Chatham and Clarendon Grammar (Ramsgate) with 118 appeals (down from 146 last year) of which 47 were upheld, and Wilmington Boys, 114 with just six upheld, through to Cranbrook School with no appeals and Dover Grammar Boys 18 with 7 upheld. In Medway Rochester Grammar had three successful appeals, and Fort Pitt four. For non-selective schools, highest were St George’s CofE, Gravesend with 57 appeals (27 last year) with just three successful, and St George’s Foundation, Broadstairs with 50 (74 last year) with 30 successful. These were also the two most popular schools in Kent measured by oversubscription levels. Also amongst the oversubscribed secondary schools, Ursuline College had 11 appeals of which none were successful.
For Infant Schools where Infant Class Legislation applies (see below), there were 318 appeals heard across Kent and Medway by Local Authority Panels, with 14 successful.
You will find further information and advice on school appeals here, with more data and explanation of the 2016 figures below. For comparison you will find the 2015 article here. .....
There is fuller data for each secondary schools in the Individual Schools section for Kent and Medway, although some pages are still not up to date. If you are interested in one of these pages, please let me know and I will revise it. You will find further general historic data for Kent here, and for Medway here.
Unfortunately, whilst I have a return from all but one Kent secondary schools, there are several Medway ones still to come. This article is published ahead of these, as I seek to provide information for parents currently looking at secondary school choice. I will update the article as these returns come in.
| Kent and Medway School Appeal Outcomes 2016 | ||||||
| 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | ||||
| Appeals Held | Number | % Upheld | Number | % Upheld | Number | % Upheld |
| Kent Non-Selective | 416 | 42% | 484 | 30% | 335 | 33% |
| Kent Grammar | 1718 | 35% | 1587 | 37% | 1667 | 42% |
| Medway Non-Selective | 178 | 34% | 122 | 24% | ||
| Medway Grammar | 300 | 31% | 245 | 40% | 226 | 47% |
| TOTAL SECONDARY | 2434 | 35% | 2494 | 35% | 2350 | 40% |
| Kent Primary (Breach) | 248 | 5% | 292 | 0.7% | 340 | 1.5% |
| Medway Primary (Breach) | 70 | 3% | 63 | 1.6% | 65 | 0% |
Independent Appeal Panels are organised by Kent County Council (independently of the Education Department), Medway Council (independently of the Education Department), for primary schools only, four private organisations, and in some cases the schools themselves recruiting clerks and panels. Broadly, statistics show little numerical difference between outcomes of these different organisations.
My secondary school data is based on the outcomes of appeals from all of the 63 Kent and Medway secondary schools that held admission appeals for entry in September 2015. Please note that outcomes can vary widely from school to school and year to year with appeal panels looking for different qualities in appeals, and pressure on places varying, so that the 2016 outcomes are not necessarily a good guide to what will happen in 2017.
Other high percentages this year are: Highsted (67%), Simon Langton Girls (66%), and Mayfield (65%).
Last year I illustrated the unpredictability of forecasting with the example of Weald of Kent when in 2014 a KCC Panel upheld 77% of the 69 appeals, possibly responding to the expectation of enlargement via the Sevenoaks annex. For 2015, when this looked in doubt, the school mounted a very strong defence to the Appeal Panel against letting any further girls in, on grounds there was no room, and just 9% of the 70 appeals were successful. For 2016 entry with the Annexe certain, the percentage rose to 27%.
Toughest area by far to win an appeal is Dartford, where three grammar schools averaged 5% success at appeal, with the fourth Wilmington Girls, not far behind at 15%. Very high numbers of appellants, largest being Wilmington Boys with 114 followed by Dartford Grammar (108), just six appeals being successful at both. Dartford Girls had just 3 successes out of 81. At Dartford in 2015, five of the 6 successful appellants had passed the Kent Test but, not being local lost out on grounds of scores not being high enough (I am pleased that the sixth was one of my clients). I suspect the profiles were similar this year but don’t have details.
West Kent is the next most difficult area apart from the two schools mentioned above. Skinners had 7 successful appeals out of 51, but in what appears to be a complete one off: 3 of these were ‘All very high scores, but failed one paper.’ 8 appellants were offered places during the re-allocation process. Judd saw just 2 successes from 39 appeals, both from the 38 who had passed. Six of the 25 appeals at Tunbridge Wells Girls were successful including two of the three who had passed. For Tonbridge Grammar there were 8 passes, including 6 who had passed. Please note that those who were successful at these schools, but had not passed the Kent Test will have had exceptional cases. Tunbridge Wells Boys is especially difficult to predict, success often reflecting varying levels of pressure on places and was down to 28% success in 2015 for its 58 appeals, from 43% in 2014.
The other most difficult school this year was Gravesend Grammar, where there were initially no places offered for any of the 61 who had appealed. This was in spite of 28 who were initially non-selective being found to be of grammar school ability, which must have been especially frustrating. Eventually 7 of the grammar assessed boys were offered places off the waiting list, and another 6 after the school admission number was increased to accommodate them.
Others were: Simon Langton Boys (8 appeals upheld, all of whom had passed the Kent Test, out of 39); Sir Roger Manwoods (10 out of 40); Dane Court (15 out of 54); and Maidstone Grammar (15 out of 53), all less than 30% success rates. All these five outcomes reflect a similar pattern to recent years. Most difficult of all is Cranbrook School, Kent’s only 13 plus entry school. Potential parents tend to be aware of the difficulty of success at appeal, so this year, the only appeal was unsuccessful. For 2014, just one out of six was upheld.
A total of 42% of all appeals that took place were upheld,up from 30% in 2015. Five schools admitted all who appealed in 2016, eight in 2015 and six in 2014, but only one did so in all three years: Northfleet Technology College. The other 2016 schools were: Canterbury High (11); Longfield (3); St Anselms (3) Trinity Free (11).
No appeals were upheld at: Wye School (14, none out of 15 in 2015); Ursuline College (11); Wrotham (4); Wilmington Academy (out of 2, but 45 last year); or the single appeals heard at St Simon Stock Catholic, or John Wallis CofE.
Other tough schools to win an appeal at were St George’s CofE, Gravesend (three out of 57 successful); Brockhill Park and King Ethelbert (one out of 12); Herne Bay High (three out of 11); Leigh Academy (2 out of 11, 2 out of 46 in 2015).
Rainham Mark is also difficult for winning appeals, this year there were five out of 33, all from the 12 wo had passed the Medway Test.
Sir Joseph Williamson’s swings considerably from year to year, for 2016, there were 16 successes out of 42, including 9 out of the 27 who had already passed (for 2015, all but 3 of the 23 who were successful out of 35 appeals, having been previously successful in the Medway Test). Chatham Girls saw 30 out of 66 appeals succeeding.
Where the planned admission number for the school is such that Infant Class Legislation does not apply 14 appeals were upheld out of 37 in Kent.
Where there are Junior Schools, appeals can often take place at the point of transfer, with four out of eleven successful in Kent, and all five in Medway.
I do not collect data for the small number of primary schools that arrange their appeals through organisations other than KCC or Medway Councils, and some of these can breach Infant Class Legislation, so you should check with the individual school to see what their practice is.