School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Cornwallis Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 98 families who named Cornwallis Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 201 and 283 put it first.

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

1.41

first choices for every place available

283 first preferences for 201 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Cornwallis Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Cornwallis Academy, 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

Cornwallis Academy turned first-choice families away in 5 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 3 of those years. In the other 2 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 Cornwallis Academy, 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 0.9 per place 227 first choices 253 places 2016/17 0.79 per place 196 first choices 248 places 2017/18 0.66 per place 162 first choices 245 places 2018/19 0.63 per place 127 first choices 201 places 2019/20 0.56 per place 143 first choices 254 places 2020/21 0.6 per place 146 first choices 242 places 2021/22 0.63 per place 82 first choices 130 places 2022/23 0.95 per place 196 first choices 206 places 2023/24 1 per place 236 first choices 237 places 2024/25 1.32 per place 274 first choices 208 places 2025/26 1.07 per place 246 first choices 230 places 2026/27 1.41 per place 283 first choices 201 places
First preferences per place at Cornwallis Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 283 first preferences for 201 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Cornwallis Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 253 227 209 0.9
2016/17 248 196 196 0.79
2017/18 245 162 162 0.66
2018/19 201 127 127 0.63
2019/20 254 143 143 0.56
2020/21 242 146 146 0.6
2021/22 130 82 82 0.63
2022/23 206 196 162 0.95
2023/24 237 236 197 1
2024/25 208 274 188 1.32
2025/26 230 246 196 1.07
2026/27 201 283 185 1.41

Places offered

201

in 2026/27

Named first choice

283

635 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

65.4%

185 of 283

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 201 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

1,080

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

988

91.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

92

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

350

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 Cornwallis Academy 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 Cornwallis Academy reported 92 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91.5% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Cornwallis Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,630 places 1,617 on roll 2010/11 1,825 places 1,606 on roll 2011/12 1,566 places 1,581 on roll 2012/13 1,566 places 1,476 on roll 2013/14 1,565 places 1,492 on roll 2014/15 1,565 places 1,499 on roll 2015/16 1,565 places 1,455 on roll 2016/17 1,565 places 1,438 on roll 2017/18 1,625 places 1,339 on roll 2018/19 1,625 places 1,282 on roll 2020/21 1,625 places 1,286 on roll 2021/22 1,625 places 1,241 on roll 2022/23 1,400 places 1,338 on roll 2023/24 1,430 places 1,304 on roll 2024/25 1,430 places 1,299 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode ME17 4HX. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135371).

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.