School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Gravesend Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 78 families who named Gravesend Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 209 and 254 put it first.

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

1.22

first choices for every place available

254 first preferences for 209 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Gravesend Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Gravesend 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

Gravesend 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 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 Gravesend 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 1.15 per place 183 first choices 159 places 2016/17 0.97 per place 168 first choices 173 places 2017/18 0.91 per place 157 first choices 172 places 2018/19 1.3 per place 226 first choices 174 places 2019/20 1.16 per place 202 first choices 174 places 2020/21 1.11 per place 234 first choices 210 places 2021/22 1.5 per place 315 first choices 210 places 2022/23 1.29 per place 271 first choices 210 places 2023/24 1.3 per place 274 first choices 210 places 2024/25 1.38 per place 289 first choices 210 places 2025/26 1.18 per place 247 first choices 209 places 2026/27 1.22 per place 254 first choices 209 places
First preferences per place at Gravesend Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 254 first preferences for 209 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Gravesend 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
2015/16 159 183 130 1.15
2016/17 173 168 113 0.97
2017/18 172 157 117 0.91
2018/19 174 226 150 1.3
2019/20 174 202 151 1.16
2020/21 210 234 175 1.11
2021/22 210 315 155 1.5
2022/23 210 271 171 1.29
2023/24 210 274 184 1.3
2024/25 210 289 183 1.38
2025/26 209 247 176 1.18
2026/27 209 254 176 1.22

Places offered

209

in 2026/27

Named first choice

254

642 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

69.3%

176 of 254

Offers to families outside the council

1%

3 of 209 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

1,096

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,078

98.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

18

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

420

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 Gravesend 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 Gravesend Grammar School reported 18 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.4% 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 Gravesend Grammar School from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 1,032 places 1,080 on roll 2012/13 1,032 places 1,063 on roll 2013/14 1,090 places 1,090 on roll 2014/15 1,130 places 1,143 on roll 2015/16 1,130 places 1,142 on roll 2016/17 1,130 places 1,204 on roll 2017/18 1,130 places 1,217 on roll 2018/19 1,130 places 1,195 on roll 2020/21 1,220 places 1,313 on roll 2021/22 1,370 places 1,352 on roll 2022/23 1,530 places 1,423 on roll 2023/24 1,530 places 1,461 on roll 2024/25 1,516 places 1,491 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 DA12 2PR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137099).

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.