School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Barton Court Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 35 families who named Barton Court Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 125 and 145 put it first.

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

1.16

first choices for every place available

145 first preferences for 125 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Barton Court Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Barton Court Grammar School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Kent 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 Kent, 27.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 1,757 of 6,368 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 Kent.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Kent 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

Barton Court Grammar School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Barton Court Grammar School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.04 per place 142 first choices 136 places 2016/17 1.05 per place 138 first choices 131 places 2017/18 0.95 per place 142 first choices 150 places 2018/19 1.03 per place 155 first choices 150 places 2019/20 1.12 per place 162 first choices 145 places 2020/21 1.07 per place 157 first choices 147 places 2021/22 1.77 per place 212 first choices 120 places 2022/23 1.2 per place 180 first choices 150 places 2023/24 1.23 per place 147 first choices 120 places 2024/25 1.05 per place 126 first choices 120 places 2025/26 1.21 per place 114 first choices 94 places 2026/27 1.16 per place 145 first choices 125 places
First preferences per place at Barton Court Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 145 first preferences for 125 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Barton Court Grammar School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 136 142 121 1.04
2016/17 131 138 106 1.05
2017/18 150 142 99 0.95
2018/19 150 155 111 1.03
2019/20 145 162 126 1.12
2020/21 147 157 121 1.07
2021/22 120 212 97 1.77
2022/23 150 180 125 1.2
2023/24 120 147 109 1.23
2024/25 120 126 99 1.05
2025/26 94 114 90 1.21
2026/27 125 145 110 1.16

Places offered

125

in 2026/27

Named first choice

145

837 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

75.9%

110 of 145

Offers to families outside the council

2%

2 of 125 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

742

98.9% of capacity

Unfilled places

8

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Barton Court Grammar School 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 Barton Court Grammar School reported 8 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.9% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Barton Court Grammar School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 815 places 827 on roll 2012/13 815 places 823 on roll 2013/14 845 places 884 on roll 2014/15 845 places 857 on roll 2015/16 845 places 851 on roll 2016/17 845 places 887 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 910 on roll 2018/19 1,050 places 960 on roll 2020/21 1,050 places 972 on roll 2021/22 1,050 places 971 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 986 on roll 2023/24 1,050 places 1,004 on roll 2024/25 1,050 places 1,006 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
Kent

Postcode CT1 1PH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137474).

Other contested secondary schools in Kent

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.