School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Dover Grammar School for Boys?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 29 families who named Dover Grammar School for Boys as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 157 and 183 put it first.

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

1.17

first choices for every place available

183 first preferences for 157 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Dover Grammar School for Boys

There is no published appeal success rate for Dover Grammar School for Boys, 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

Dover Grammar School for Boys turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 10 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 Dover Grammar School for Boys, 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 1.2 per place 144 first choices 120 places 2016/17 1.02 per place 130 first choices 127 places 2017/18 1.07 per place 147 first choices 138 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 146 first choices 150 places 2019/20 1.07 per place 147 first choices 137 places 2020/21 0.97 per place 121 first choices 125 places 2021/22 1.04 per place 149 first choices 143 places 2022/23 1.06 per place 158 first choices 149 places 2023/24 1.08 per place 156 first choices 145 places 2024/25 1.13 per place 174 first choices 154 places 2025/26 1.26 per place 198 first choices 157 places 2026/27 1.17 per place 183 first choices 157 places
First preferences per place at Dover Grammar School for Boys. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 183 first preferences for 157 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Dover Grammar School for Boys, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 144 119 1.2
2016/17 127 130 116 1.02
2017/18 138 147 135 1.07
2018/19 150 146 129 0.97
2019/20 137 147 134 1.07
2020/21 125 121 104 0.97
2021/22 143 149 117 1.04
2022/23 149 158 141 1.06
2023/24 145 156 135 1.08
2024/25 154 174 149 1.13
2025/26 157 198 154 1.26
2026/27 157 183 154 1.17

Places offered

157

in 2026/27

Named first choice

183

340 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.2%

154 of 183

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 157 offers

How places were ranked

These are the oversubscription criteria Dover Grammar School for Boys published for 2027 entry, in the order the school itself sets them out. They are the rules the admission authority had to apply when more families applied than there were places — and at the first stage of an appeal, they are the document the panel is looking at.

Oversubscription criteria for Dover Grammar School for Boys, 2027 entry, quoted from the school's determined admission arrangements. Sub-clauses are shown indented under the criterion they qualify.
Rank Criterion, as the school words it
1 Children in Local Authority Care, Internationally Adopted Children and Children Previously in State Care Outside of England – looked after children who were previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to adoption, a child arrangements order, or special guardianship order. 1 A child under the age of 18 years for whom the Local Authority provides accommodation by agreement with his parents/ carers (Section 22 of the Children Act 1989) or who is subject of a care order under Part IV of the Act. […] criterion continues in the source document
2 Children in receipt of Pupil Premium – A child is eligible for Pupil Premium where they have been registered for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the last 6 years (students in this category are classified as ‘targeted FSM’. This does not include students categorised as ‘expanded FSM’). This does not include children who have only been eligible to receive Universal Infant Free School Meals. Pupil Premium is also afforded to Children in Local Authority Care or Previously in Local Authority Care; however, these children will be prioritised in the relevant criteria above. […] criterion continues in the source document
3 Current Family Association - a brother or sister already attending the School at the time of entry. In this context brother or sister means children who live as brother or sister in the same house, including natural brothers or sisters, adopted siblings, stepbrothers or sisters and foster brothers and sisters. If siblings from multiple births (twins, triplets, etc) apply for a school and the school would reach its Published Admission Number (PAN) after admitting one or more, but before admitting all of those siblings, the LA will offer a place to each of the siblings, even if doing so takes the school above its PAN.
4 Health and Special Access Reasons - Medical/Health and Special Access Reasons will be applied in accordance with the School’s legal obligations, in particular those under the Equality Act 2010. Priority will be given to children whose mental or physical impairment means they have a demonstrable and significant need to attend a particular school. Equally this priority will apply to children whose parents’/guardians’ physical or mental health or social needs mean that they have a demonstrable and significant need to attend a particular school. […] criterion continues in the source document
5 Children of Staff at DGSB - A child of a member of staff may be given priority for admission in the following circumstances: where the member of staff has been employed at the school for 2 or more years at the time at which the application for admission to the school is made; and/or the member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage.
6 Nearness of children's homes to school - We use the distance between the child’s permanent home address (defined in KCC’s annual admissions prospectus) and the school, measured in a straight line using the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) address point. Distances are measured from a point defined as within the child’s home to a point defined as within the school as specified by NLPG. The same address point on the school site is used for everybody. When we apply the distance criterion for the school, these straight-line measurements are used to determine how close each applicant’s address is to the school. […] criterion continues in the source document

The first criterion is not the school's choice. Paragraph 1.7 of the School Admissions Code 2021 requires every admission authority in England to give looked-after and previously looked-after children the highest priority, so it sits at the top of every list of this kind.

Meeting a criterion is not the same as winning an appeal

A panel does not decide your appeal by working through this list again. At the first stage it asks a narrower question: were these arrangements lawful, and were they applied to your application correctly and impartially? If they were, the panel moves to the second stage and weighs your child's circumstances against the harm to the school of admitting another pupil — and that stage has nothing to do with which criterion you fell under.

So this list is most useful for checking one thing: whether the school applied its own published rules to you properly. A criterion applied to you in a way the wording does not support is a first-stage point. Simply falling into a lower category is not — that is the system working as published.

These are the criteria determined for 2027 entry. An admission authority must re-determine its arrangements by 15 March each year, so check the school's current version before relying on any of this for a different round.

Dover Grammar School for Boys's determined admission arrangements for 2027 entry, published by the admission authority under paragraph 1.47 of the School Admissions Code 2021. Source document. Quoted verbatim; wording, order and numbering are the school's own.

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

707

94.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

43

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

215

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 Dover Grammar School for Boys 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 Dover Grammar School for Boys reported 43 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 94.3% 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 Dover Grammar School for Boys from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 500 1,000 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 787 places 750 on roll 2010/11 799 places 751 on roll 2011/12 775 places 754 on roll 2012/13 766 places 767 on roll 2013/14 770 places 768 on roll 2014/15 779 places 787 on roll 2015/16 866 places 788 on roll 2016/17 866 places 791 on roll 2017/18 930 places 791 on roll 2018/19 880 places 792 on roll 2020/21 899 places 765 on roll 2021/22 899 places 793 on roll 2022/23 899 places 826 on roll 2023/24 899 places 860 on roll 2024/25 965 places 897 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.

This school's admission rules have been challenged

Separately from appeals, anyone can object that a school's admission arrangements break the School Admissions Code. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator decides those objections and publishes a determination naming the school. Dover Grammar School for Boys has been the subject of 3 such determinations. The adjudicator did not find its arrangements at fault.

Adjudicator determinations naming Dover Grammar School for Boys. Each links to the full determination on GOV.UK.
Determined Outcome Determination
6 September 2022 No fault found ADA3914
9 December 2019 No fault found ADA3581
16 August 2017 No fault found ADA3303

This is not a prediction about your appeal. An objection is about the rules the school admits by; an appeal is your case about your child. No school-level appeal figures are published for any school in England, and a determination does not create any. An upheld objection also requires the school to revise its arrangements, so a finding from an earlier year describes rules that had to change — what matters for your appeal is the arrangements for the year you applied under, and whether they were applied to you correctly.

When a mistake in the process is a ground for appeal →

Office of the Schools Adjudicator, published determinations.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode CT17 0DQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118931).

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.