Refused a place at Duke of York's Royal Military School?
You are not alone. In 2026/27, 3 families who named Duke of York's Royal Military School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 28 and 29 put it first.
Below: what an appeal in Kent actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.
first choices for every place available
29 first preferences for 28 places, 2026/27
Appealing a refusal at Duke of York's Royal Military School
There is no published appeal success rate for Duke of York's Royal Military 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.
- Infant class size
- A mistake in how the decision was made
- Distance and catchment
- Siblings
- Faith and religious criteria
- Medical and social need
- Special educational needs without an EHC plan
- A late application
- In-year admissions
- Grammar schools and the 11-plus
- Sixth form places
- Twins and multiple births
How contested this school has been
Duke of York's Royal Military School turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.
View as a table
| Year | Places | First choices | Offered | Per place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015/16 | 35 | 39 | 32 | 1.11 |
| 2016/17 | 36 | 40 | 34 | 1.11 |
| 2017/18 | 12 | 25 | 11 | 2.08 |
| 2018/19 | 21 | 26 | 17 | 1.24 |
| 2019/20 | 25 | 33 | 25 | 1.32 |
| 2020/21 | 20 | 25 | 19 | 1.25 |
| 2021/22 | 24 | 26 | 20 | 1.08 |
| 2022/23 | 30 | 24 | 24 | 0.8 |
| 2023/24 | 23 | 24 | 19 | 1.04 |
| 2024/25 | 17 | 13 | 12 | too small to publish |
| 2025/26 | 16 | 17 | 13 | too small to publish |
| 2026/27 | 28 | 29 | 26 | 1.04 |
Places offered
28
in 2026/27
Named first choice
29
58 named it at any preference
First choices offered a place
89.7%
26 of 29
Offers to families outside the council
29%
8 of 28 offers
What these figures do not tell you
- How close you had to live. Cut-off distances are set by whoever runs admissions for the school. Kent does not publish them, and no council is required to — the regulations ask only for the admission number and the preferences received. Ask the admission authority directly — how distance is measured, and when it is arguable.
- How this school decides between applicants. Sibling rules, catchment, faith criteria and tie-breaks are in the school's own admission arrangements. What matters for an appeal is whether they were applied to you correctly — siblings, faith criteria and process mistakes.
- Whether an appeal here succeeds. Appeal outcomes are published by council only. A school being heavily oversubscribed means more families appeal, not that their appeals do better.
About the school
- Type
- Academy sponsor led
- Admissions policy
- Non-selective
- Religious character
- No religious character
- Entry point
- Year 7
- Council
- Kent
Postcode CT15 5EQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136177).
Other contested secondary schools in Kent
- Dartford Grammar School 3.18 first choices per place
- Dartford Grammar School for Girls 2.40 first choices per place
- The Judd School 2.23 first choices per place
- Tonbridge Grammar School 1.96 first choices per place
- St John's Catholic Comprehensive 1.77 first choices per place
- The Malling School 1.65 first choices per place
- School of Science and Technology Maidstone 1.63 first choices per place
- Cranbrook School 1.62 first choices per place
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.