. I am still awaiting outcomes from two of the 69 secondary schools which held appeals.

A new phenomenon is the large number of appeals  being submitted this autumn across a number of schools, perhaps reflecting unhappiness with the school originally allocated. 

Follow the links to find my general appeal information and advice for Kent Grammars, Medway Grammars, and oversubscription for grammars and non-selectives. Other recent articles include Kent and Medway Test outcomes and Kent GCSE results 2018.

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. 

You will find outcomes of all individual secondary school appeal outcomes for Kent here and Medway here including nearly all for 2018. Several pages are out of date because of pressure on time but I am happy to update appeal data if requested. The second of two articles on appeal outcomes in 2017 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 because of Infant Class Legislation.

Whilst many schools will tend to see similar patterns year on year, circumstances for individual schools can change sharply, as can be seen from the Individual Schools tables, with some examples below.

In Thanet, there was controversy as the head of Dane Court attacked Chatham and Clarendon in the media alleging that they (as do some other grammar and non-selective schools) took on a large number of additional pupils through the appeal process to boost finances. This follows a decision by C&C to get rid of the previous Independent Panel after the 2015 appeals because they were not upholding enough appeals. KCC Panels have ever since been more obliging, as can be seen from the data, with 54 out of 82 appeals being upheld. This has also created concern amongst other local schools; primaries, as they see what they regard as clearly non-selective children being assessed grammar, and non-selective schools being raided of their more promising pupils. Dane Court itself saw a fall in its rate of appeals upheld to 11%.

Similar concerns have been expressed in Canterbury about Simon Langton Girls, which has suffered a fall in popularity following recent controversy, although this year the success rate fell to 64% from 2017’s sky high 82%, all initially non-selective. The heavily oversubscribed Simon Langton Boys operates an opposite policy, with the Independent Panel upholding 7 or 8 appeals each year almost always, as in 2018, from boys previously found selective. The mixed Barton Court having previously been generous with its appeals to boost numbers has now reached capacity so just 7 appeals, 6 from pupils already selective were upheld.

Dover Grammar Girls and Highsted Grammar (girls) continue to see a high rate of success, although Harvey Grammar fell sharply to 10%. Other schools were all below the county pass rate of 30%, including Borden where some appellants, although being found of grammar school ability by the Panel, were placed on the waiting list. 

High success rates at both of the Ashford grammars.

The Gravesend Boys Panel was faced with both a large number of boys appealing from London Boroughs and also Essex, and a surge in numbers of local boys passing the Kent Test. With 40 appellants already being found selective, 13 had appeals upheld, mainly or wholly from the local area of Longfield and New Ash Green. One other boy was offered a place from the 81 appellants. At Mayfield, just one of the 14 girls originally found selective was offered a place, along with 12 others as the Panel also appears to have favoured local girls.

The other five grammar schools all had similar outcomes to previous years and, apart from Chatham Grammar Girls,  all 31 successful appeals at the other four came from pupils who had previously been found selective.

In total 31 non-Selective  organised held appeals across Kent and Medway, 18 using KCC Panels, with 29% of appeals being upheld.

Otherwise, there are few common factors in any of these sets of appeals, as they reflect individual school circumstances, so I suggest you consult the data for Individual Schools for details.   

The most pressured districts are Thanet and Maidstone. In Thanet, where four of the six schools are heavily oversubscribed as many families try and avoid the other two, there were 146 appeals with 24 upheld, just 16% successful, although many families will have made multiple appeals. St George's CofE Foundation School saw 4 appeals upheld out of 50 appeals. 

In Maidstone, there is considerable polarisation of popularity amongst the non-selective schools. All six with appeals held these using KCC Panels. The three most popular - St Simon Stock, Maplesden Noakes and Valley Park - upheld just 9% of appeals out of 119 heard, with St Simon Stock allowing no one through for the second year running. St Augustine's Academy and The Malling School held appeals for the first time. 

Dartford, which not so long ago featured Leigh Academy as the most oversubscribed school in the county, had just 6 appeals in two schools, Dartford College of Science and Technology and the new Inspiration School - part of the Leigh Academy Trust that runs four of the six Dartford schools.

Most difficult school to win an appeal was Bennett Memorial, where just one out of 24 appeals was upheld. I know from past experience that it normally takes a very special set of circumstances to convince the appeal panel. My previous article on the shortage of non-selective places in Tunbridge Wells identified over 100 children with no local school of their choice, 87 being allocated by KCC at High Weald Academy in Cranbrook and Hayesbrook School in Tonbridge, two schools run by the troubled Brook Learning Trust. The 24 out of 38 appeals upheld at the only non-secular school in the District, Skinners Kent Academy, will have gone some way to reducing this figure. 

Next in difficulty comes Brompton Academy, the second most oversubscribed school in Kent and Medway (to St George’s Foundation School in Thanet which had a very similar statistic last year), where just 5 out of 63 appeals was successful. On the other hand, Rainham School for Girls had all 18 appeals upheld.