APPLICATIONS

KCC controls the allocation of places using the priority lists drawn up by each school placing applications in accord with their place as dictated by the school's admission criteria. They then award the highest school place for which a child is eligible to that child. This does not mean that placing a school in first place will give you any greater chance of a place at that school. The advice is simple. Place schools in your own order of preference and you won't go wrong. 

The process of identifying which one school your child will be offered on National Offer Day is called an Equal Preference Scheme and is quite complex to understand. However...

You will not boost your chances at one school by placing it in a different order than your genuine preference. Sadly, some schools still verbally advise parents otherwise (over a decade after the scheme that allowed it was scrapped) . No Kent or Medway school or academy is told the position where parents have placed a school on the SCAF (although several schools continue to claim otherwise at Open Evenings for parents, but not in writing), and so none can offer a place according to the position. WARNING: However if you go to appeal for a school in Medway, the school and appeal Panel gets to see your full list of preferences and the reasons for them. I think this is very wrong, but am told it is legal.   You should not place a non-selective school ahead of a grammar school on your form unless it is a real preference, otherwise you may find yourself offered a place at the non-selective school, even though the child has passed the eleven plus.

Some grammar school scenarios:

• If the child has passed the Kent tests, you may name just grammar schools on your SCAF. In a few cases, if your child does not qualify for any of these because other children have taken up all available places, you could be offered the nearest grammar school with a vacancy, although KCC has no obligation to do so and tends to offer a place at the nearest non-selective school. In some previous years this has affected children in Dartford and West Kent. What was described as "an unwritten policy" by KCC that a Kent child who passed the 11 plus was entitled to a grammar school place, no longer applies.
• The Dover, Shepway, Mayfield and Highsted Tests do not qualify you for admission to any other grammar school.

• If your child has not taken the eleven plus, you can only be considered for non-selective schools but can make a late entry to grammar school, when you will be invited to take the Test. However, the local grammar schools may be full by then in which case you may have to appeal.  

• If your child has taken the eleven plus and not passed, and you wish to appeal, you must name the grammar schools you wish to appeal to on the SCAF, together with any non-selective schools you wish to apply to.

• If your child has passed the eleven plus and you name grammar schools and a non-selective school, for example a church comprehensive school, you will be offered the highest school on your list for which your child is eligible. If this is the non-selective school then you will be offered it in preference to a grammar school lower down your list.

You will find further advice and information on the next page, with the page on School Admission Appeal Outcomes in Kent and Medway for 2020 relevant for some. The 2021 article is in preparation and you will find the full set of outcomes for every Kent school that held appeals on the Individual School pages. 

You will find Kent grammar school, Medway general and Medway grammar school admission  articles linked on the relevant pages