School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 269 families who named King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 149 and 412 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Essex actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

2.77

first choices for every place available

412 first preferences for 149 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford

There is no published appeal success rate for King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Essex as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Essex, 15.1% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 249 of 1,651 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Essex.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Essex ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.86 per place 277 first choices 149 places 2016/17 2.14 per place 321 first choices 150 places 2017/18 1.94 per place 291 first choices 150 places 2018/19 2.18 per place 327 first choices 150 places 2019/20 2.55 per place 382 first choices 150 places 2020/21 2.17 per place 326 first choices 150 places 2021/22 3.76 per place 572 first choices 152 places 2022/23 2.36 per place 352 first choices 149 places 2023/24 2.41 per place 361 first choices 150 places 2024/25 2.28 per place 339 first choices 149 places 2025/26 2.74 per place 411 first choices 150 places 2026/27 2.77 per place 412 first choices 149 places
First preferences per place at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 412 first preferences for 149 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 149 277 148 1.86
2016/17 150 321 143 2.14
2017/18 150 291 147 1.94
2018/19 150 327 146 2.18
2019/20 150 382 147 2.55
2020/21 150 326 135 2.17
2021/22 152 572 142 3.76
2022/23 149 352 139 2.36
2023/24 150 361 143 2.41
2024/25 149 339 140 2.28
2025/26 150 411 141 2.74
2026/27 149 412 143 2.77

Places offered

149

in 2026/27

Named first choice

412

740 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

34.7%

143 of 412

Offers to families outside the council

19%

28 of 149 offers

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

751

100.1% of capacity

Over its capacity by

1

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

412

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 890 places 888 on roll 2011/12 890 places 892 on roll 2012/13 890 places 890 on roll 2013/14 890 places 894 on roll 2014/15 890 places 915 on roll 2015/16 890 places 975 on roll 2016/17 890 places 1,021 on roll 2017/18 1,142 places 1,064 on roll 2018/19 1,142 places 1,099 on roll 2020/21 1,142 places 1,116 on roll 2021/22 1,142 places 1,120 on roll 2022/23 1,142 places 1,130 on roll 2023/24 1,142 places 1,134 on roll 2024/25 1,162 places 1,138 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Essex

Postcode CM1 3SX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136642).

Other contested secondary schools in Essex

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.