Medway Secondary Schools & Academies M-R

updated April 2019

You will find an initial article on 2019 allocations here, an article on 2019 oversubscription data for Medway grammar schools here, and for non-selective schools here. For Grammar School Preferences, only grammar qualified are counted. The PAN is the Published Admission Number and refers to the number of places available in the year group for each school. If additional places were offered, I have recorded this under PAN.

A Report on 2019 Appeals Outcomes here. For Attainment 8 and Progress 8 and further information on the performance of all Medway schools with 2019 GCSE scores go to here for explanation. 2019 GCSE performance data is currently provisional before final data is published in January.

Rainham Mark Grammar School, Rainham. Lead school in the Rainham Mark Grammar School Academy Group, incorporating Twydall Primary School. The school continues to grow in popularity. The school selected on high scores until 2017 and has now switched to mainly geographical proximity without apparent loss of popularity. OFSTED June 2014 - Outstanding, up from Good. Loses too high a percentage of pupils after GCSE and end of Year 11. For 2016 entry, 22 students dropped out from A Level in Year 12 in 2016, a high 13% of the total. See article. For 2017 19% after GCSE and 10% at the end of Year 12. For 2018, 16% after GCSE and 9% after Year 12.

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	1st preferences not offered
2014	205	226	37
2015	205	227	29
2016	205	207	19
2017	205	241	62
2018	205	259	33
2019	235	253	27

Children were offered places up to 2.8 miles out on allocation for 2019. I do not have separate data for boys and girls but children are offered places according to the criteria irrespective of gender. So best guess would be around a 50/50 split.

APPEALS FOR SCHOOL PLACES
	Appeals Heard	Upheld
2014	35	5
2015	34	7
2016	25	5
2017	60	6
2018	46	11
2019	43	9

Appeals organised by Independent Appeal Administrator. It is consistently difficult to win a place on appeal. For reasons I don't understand, the Appeals Panel for this excellent school conducted some of the most aggressive appeals in Kent or Medway. However, for 2018 they changed to use a KCC Panel.

2014 - 5 of the 19 who had passed had appeals upheld

2015 - 7 of the 20 who had passed had appeals upheld

2017 - 6 of the 49 who had passed had appeals upheld

2018 - 11 of the 22 who had passed who went to appeal had appeals upheld, so the change of Appeal Administration, whilst it will have made appeals less of an interrogation made no difference to the historical record of only children with a Medway pass being accepted on appeal.

2019 8 of the nine appeals upheld were for children who had passed the Medway Test.

PERFORMANCE DATA
	Progress 8	Attainment 8	% 5A*-C (inc Eng and Maths)	KS5 Progress Score
2014	n/a	n/a	98
2015	n/a	n/a	97
2016	0.24	66.5	Grade 5 & above Eng and Maths
2017	0.24(AA)	64.3	87%	-0.12(BA)
2018	0.36(AA)	64.8	86%	-0.02(A)
2019 P	0.28 (AA)	65.6	90%

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Rainham School for Girls, Gillingham. The school is an academy, part of the Kemnal Manor Trust (Bromley). OFSTED May 2016 - Good again.

Historically, all girls who apply for places and persist through to appeal have been offered places. Put forward a bizarre plan to develop a primary extension for girls only for 2020 entry that has been quietly dropped. .

Consistently sound GCSE performance for a non-selective school

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	1st preferences not offered
2014	270	263	44
2015	270	259	37
2016	270	259	0
2017	270	209	1
2018	270	232	17
2019	270	293	63

APPEALS FOR SCHOOL PLACES
	Appeals Heard	Upheld
2015	32	32
2016	28	28
2017	0	0
2018	18	18
2019	56	56

For 2015, through to 2019 there was a group session for appeals and after this the appeal panel decided to offer places to all appellants. No guarantee this will happen for 2020!

PERFORMANCE DATA
	Progress 8	Attainment 8	% 5A*-C (inc Eng and Maths)	KS5 Progress Score
2014	n/a	n/a	57
2015	n/a	n/a	49
2016	0.3	49.7	Grade 5 & above Eng and Maths
2017	-0.08 (A)	42.1	33%	0.13(AA)
2018	0.09(A)	43.4	28%	-0.13(BA)
2019 P	0.31	43.8	30%

Typically Second Best Non-Selective GCSE performer at Progress 8 in Medway 2018; highest in Attainment 8

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Robert Napier School, Gillingham. An academy sponsored by the Fort Pitt Thomas Aveling Academies Trust. OFSTED January 2019 - Good, up from Requires Improvement. Has certainly struggled but appears on the way up. Now needs to lose its reputation. However, performance slumped again for summer 2019.

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	Vacant places	LAA Allocations
2014	210	73	23	42
2015	180	87	0	40
2016	180	85	36	19
2017	180	94	0	25
2018	180	111	1	11
2019	180	79	0	22

2014 - 2019 all first preferences offered

Most of the Local Authority Allocations would have been unsuccessful applicants for Brompton, Howard or Rainham Girls.

2014 - 2018 no appeals for school admission

PERFORMANCE DATA
	Progress 8	Attainment 8	% 5A*-C (inc Eng and Maths)	KS5 Progress Score
2014	n/a	n/a	31
2015	n/a	n/a	26
2016	-0.08	41.7	Grade 5 & above Eng and Maths
2017	-0.11 (A)	35.3	9%	-0.24(BA)
2018	-0.15(A)	37.9	20%	-0.72 (WBA)
2019 P	-0.63 (WBA)	32.3	10%

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The Rochester Grammar School. Part of Thinking Schools Academy Trust.

News December 2018: In a complete reversal of its recent history, RGS has proposed to give priority for admission to girls living closest to the school and scrapping its high scores category. For further details here. Admissions for September 2019 have seen pass core soar as siblings from the school and girls from linked primary schools are given priority as long as they have passed the Medway Test. For 2019 cut off it is higher than 349, or 57 points above the pass mark in the Medway Test of 492, much greater than the 2018 gap of 25 points.

OFSTED Outstanding in November 2008. Selected mainly on high aggregate scores, but put forward changes in Admission criteria to offer more places to connected girls with basic passes in Medway Test. Some of these were turned down by Schools Adjudicator in 2018. The number of first preferences has increased in most years, wholly down to increased pressure from out of county, see below. The school is scrapping A Level from September 2019 onwards changing to 100% International Baccalaureate.

24 girls dropped out from A Level in Year 12 in 2016, a high 13% of the total. See article, Fell to 10% in 2017, along with all other grammar schools following my exposure of malpractice. This could be simply down to the pressure that girls are placed on to achieve, with others falling out or being encouraged to leave in the main school if they can't keep up to the standard. However, for those who have the ability and motivation to succeed it is reportedly a great experience, hence the school's popularity. One can only speculate how the school will manage under the new admission rules with the small minority of girls admitted on basic pass scores. Or much more importantly how the girls will fare!

According to the October 2018 census, a net 4% of girls left the school after Year 11 (some will have joined). Appears high for a grammar school, but three other Medway grammars had more! Year 12 leavers down to 7%.

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	1st preferences not offered	Cut off. Marks above pass score	Out of County Allocations
2014	175	172	6	1	53
2015	205	222	24	10	48
2016	175	198	36	18	59
2017	205	268	87	33	76
2018	205	241	55	25	81
2019	175	266	121	58	74

APPEALS FOR SCHOOL PLACES
	Appeals Heard	Upheld
2014	14	5
2015	28	6
2016	43	3
2017	69	5
2018	47	8
2019	48	5

All successful appeals in the past five years have been from girls who were found selective by the Medway Test.

2015 - 6 of the 18 who had passed had appeals upheld

2016 - 3 of the 19 who had passed had appeals upheld

2017 - 5 of the 67 who had passed had appeals upheld

2018 - 8 of the 31 who had passed had appeals upheld

PERFORMANCE DATA
	Progress 8	Attainment 8	% 5A*-C (inc Eng and Maths)	KS5 Progress Score
2014	n/a	n/a	99
2015	n/a	n/a	99
2016	0.68	71	Grade 5 & above Eng and Maths
2017	0.88 (WAA)	71	95%	0.1(A)
2018	0.63(WAA)	66.6	87%	-0.01 (A)
2019 P	0.82 (WAA)	68.9	92%