School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Dartford Grammar School for Girls?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 275 families who named Dartford Grammar School for Girls as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 178 and 428 put it first.

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

2.40

first choices for every place available

428 first preferences for 178 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Dartford Grammar School for Girls

There is no published appeal success rate for Dartford Grammar School for Girls, 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

Dartford Grammar School for Girls 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 Dartford Grammar School for Girls, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.8 1.5 2.3 3.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.67 per place 267 first choices 160 places 2016/17 1.8 per place 319 first choices 177 places 2017/18 2.19 per place 390 first choices 178 places 2018/19 1.94 per place 349 first choices 180 places 2019/20 2.38 per place 428 first choices 180 places 2020/21 2.59 per place 467 first choices 180 places 2021/22 2.68 per place 479 first choices 179 places 2022/23 2.57 per place 457 first choices 178 places 2023/24 2.36 per place 425 first choices 180 places 2024/25 2.72 per place 486 first choices 179 places 2025/26 2.15 per place 384 first choices 179 places 2026/27 2.4 per place 428 first choices 178 places
First preferences per place at Dartford Grammar School for Girls. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 428 first preferences for 178 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Dartford Grammar School for Girls, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 160 267 144 1.67
2016/17 177 319 156 1.8
2017/18 178 390 157 2.19
2018/19 180 349 149 1.94
2019/20 180 428 149 2.38
2020/21 180 467 158 2.59
2021/22 179 479 154 2.68
2022/23 178 457 158 2.57
2023/24 180 425 149 2.36
2024/25 179 486 158 2.72
2025/26 179 384 151 2.15
2026/27 178 428 153 2.4

Places offered

178

in 2026/27

Named first choice

428

1,269 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

35.7%

153 of 428

Offers to families outside the council

31%

56 of 178 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 118883.

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

912

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

895

98.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

17

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Dartford Grammar School for Girls 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 Dartford Grammar School for Girls reported 17 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.1% 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 Dartford Grammar School for Girls from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,056 places 1,068 on roll 2010/11 1,038 places 1,063 on roll 2011/12 1,046 places 1,062 on roll 2012/13 1,052 places 1,067 on roll 2013/14 1,008 places 1,063 on roll 2014/15 1,042 places 1,075 on roll 2015/16 1,059 places 1,066 on roll 2016/17 1,059 places 1,107 on roll 2017/18 1,147 places 1,147 on roll 2018/19 1,147 places 1,161 on roll 2020/21 1,250 places 1,241 on roll 2021/22 1,250 places 1,239 on roll 2022/23 1,260 places 1,248 on roll 2023/24 1,260 places 1,242 on roll 2024/25 1,272 places 1,246 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 DA1 2NT. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144100).

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.