Medway Secondary Schools & Academies M-R

updated February 2021

You will find an initial article on 2020 allocations here, an article on 2020 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 2020 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. In the Individual performance table, under KS5 Progress Heading for 2019, you will find a figure like this: -0.37(BA,104,D+, 60). This tells you that the school has a Progress performance level at A Level, of -0,37, which is Below Average, 104 students took at least one A Level with an average Grade of D+, with 60 students taking three A Levels.

Rainham Mark Grammar School, Rainham. Became a Converter Academy in 2011. Lead school in the Rainham Mark Grammar School Academy Group, incorporating Twydall Primary School and Riverside Primary. 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. 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. For 2019, 20% after GCSE, 9% after Year 12.

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	1st preferences not offered
2016	205	207	19
2017	205	241	62
2018	205	259	33
2019	235	253	27
2020	235	251	29

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
2016	25	5
2017	60	6
2018	46	11
2019	43	9
2020	54	8

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.

2020 5 of the 21 who had passed the Medway Test had appeals upheld through a paper-based procedure,

PERFORMANCE DATA
	Prog 8	Attain 8	Level 5 Eng & Maths	KS5 Progress Score*
2016	0.24	66.5
2017	0.24(AA)	64.3	87%	-0.12(BA)
2018	0.36(AA)	64.8	86%	-0.02(A)
2019	0.27 (AA)	65.7	90%	0.03(A,129,B-,113)

Rainham Mark Ofsted Performance
	Inspection Type	Outcome
Jan 2016	No Formal Designation	Issues Regarding Safeguarding Addressed
Jun 2014	Full	Outstanding
Mar 2012	Interim	Good
Oct 2008	Full	Good

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Rainham School for Girls, Gillingham. The school became a Converter academy, part of the Kemnal Manor Trust (Bromley) in 2011. 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 was quietly dropped, after I lodged a complaint.

Consistently sound GCSE performance for a non-selective school.

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	1st preferences not offered
2016	270	259	0
2017	270	209	1
2018	270	232	17
2019	270	293	63
2020	300	296	37

APPEALS FOR SCHOOL PLACES
	Appeals Heard	Upheld
2016	28	28
2017	0	0
2018	18	18
2019	56	56
2020	37	37

For 2015, through to 2020 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 2021, but there is likely to be a paper-based procedure again!

PERFORMANCE DATA
	Prog 8	Attain 8	Level 5 Eng & Maths	KS5 Progress Score
2016	0.3	49.7
2017	-0.08 (A)	42.1	33%	0.13(AA)
2018	0.09(A)	43.4	28%	-0.13(BA)
2019	0.31	44.0	31%	-0.06(A,123,C-,56)

Typically second Best Non-Selective GCSE performer at Progress 8 and Attainment 8 in Medway 2019

Rainham Girls Ofsted Performance
	Inspection Type	Outcome
May 2016	Full	Good
Jun 2012	Full	Good

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Robert Napier School, Gillingham. Became an academy sponsored by the Fort Pitt Thomas Aveling Academies Trust in September 2012 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, lowest Medway Progress 8 and Attainment 8.

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	Vacant places	LAA Allocations
2016	180	85	36	19
2017	180	94	0	25
2018	180	111	1	11
2019	180	79	0	22
2020	210	109	0	18

2014 - 2020 all first preferences offered. School filled in recent places caused by pressure on numbers. The new Medway Maritime School opening in 2022 will eat into these.

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
	Prog 8	Attain 8	Level 5 Eng & Maths	KS5 Progress Score*
2016	-0.08	41.7
2017	-0.11 (A)	35.3	9%	-0.24(BA)
2018	-0.15(A)	37.9	20%	-0.72 (WBA)
2019	-0.64 (WBA)	32.3	10%	-0.3( BA,41,D+,10)

Robert Napier Ofsted Performance
	Inspection Type	Outcome
Jan 2019	Full	Good
Jul 2018	Monitoring	Effective Action
Sep 2016	Full	Requires Improvement
Jul 2015	Monitoring	Effective action
Oct 2014	Monitoring	Not Taking Effective Action
Jul 2014	Full	Requires Improvement

+Jan 2019 inspection transformation

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The Rochester Grammar School. Part of Thinking Schools Academy Trust. Became a Converter Academy in February 2012. In a complete reversal of its recent history, RGS is giving priority for admission to girls living closest to the school and scrapping its high scores category for 2020 admissions onward. For further details here. OFSTED Outstanding in November 2008. No further Inspection for 12 years. Had previously put forward smaller 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 school scrapped A Level from September 2019 onward, changing to 100% International Baccalaureate, with a disastrous fall in numbers. The change of admission criteria produced its own fall in popularity in 2020, the combination fo the two being looked at here.

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. right down to 1% in 2019. Also according to the October 2019 census, a net 13% 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! The staying on rate for Year 11 girls fell sharply to 46% in 2020, lower than one in two girls staying on, and greater only than Dover Grammar Boys with its very different type of catchment.

These losses 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!

INITIAL ALLOCATIONS
	PAN	1st preferences	1st preferences not offered	Cut off. Marks above pass score	Out of County Places
2016	175	198	36	18	59
2017	205	268	87	33	76
2018	205	241	55	25	81
2019	175	266	121	58	74
2020	235	238	25	No Longer Relevant	83

65 of the 83 children from outside Medway come from Kent. Many of these will come from near the boundary with Kent, especially from Gravesham. Part reason for this is that the Medway distance measure is by road rather than a direct measure. As a result children from the Hoo Peninsula rarely qualify being further away having to navigate the Medway bridge on the way for the shortest route (they will tend to go to Fort Pitt). Others will be siblings, a factor that will diminish over time.

APPEALS FOR SCHOOL PLACES
	Appeals Heard	Upheld
2016	43	3
2017	69	5
2018	47	8
2019	48	5
2020	20	6

All successful appeals in the past five years have been from girls who were found selective by the Medway Test. In recent years, appeals have been heard by a KCC Panel.

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

2020 - 6 of the 7 girls who had passed the Medway Test had appeals upheld.

PERFORMANCE DATA
	Prog 8	Attain 8	Level 5 Eng and Maths	KS5 Progress Score*
2016	0.68	71
2017	0.88 (WAA)	71	95%	0.1(A)
2018	0.63(WAA)	66.6	87%	-0.01 (A)
2019	0.81 (WAA)	69.0	92%	-0.22(BA,117,B-,104)