School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at King Ethelbert School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 17 families who named King Ethelbert School as their first choice did not get a place: 144 put it first and 127 of them were offered one.

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

17

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

144 first preferences for 150 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at King Ethelbert School

There is no published appeal success rate for King Ethelbert 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

King Ethelbert School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 of those years. In the other 1 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 King Ethelbert 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 1.46 per place 231 first choices 158 places 2016/17 1.44 per place 218 first choices 151 places 2017/18 1.77 per place 278 first choices 157 places 2018/19 1.91 per place 283 first choices 148 places 2019/20 1.81 per place 266 first choices 147 places 2020/21 1.8 per place 273 first choices 152 places 2021/22 1.09 per place 170 first choices 156 places 2022/23 1.22 per place 179 first choices 147 places 2023/24 1.28 per place 190 first choices 148 places 2024/25 1.25 per place 189 first choices 151 places 2025/26 1.09 per place 164 first choices 151 places 2026/27 0.96 per place 144 first choices 150 places
First preferences per place at King Ethelbert School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 144 first preferences for 150 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at King Ethelbert School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 158 231 151 1.46
2016/17 151 218 146 1.44
2017/18 157 278 150 1.77
2018/19 148 283 145 1.91
2019/20 147 266 144 1.81
2020/21 152 273 130 1.8
2021/22 156 170 114 1.09
2022/23 147 179 135 1.22
2023/24 148 190 137 1.28
2024/25 151 189 137 1.25
2025/26 151 164 143 1.09
2026/27 150 144 127 0.96

Places offered

150

in 2026/27

Named first choice

144

537 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

88.2%

127 of 144

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 150 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

750

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

739

98.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

11

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

120

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 King Ethelbert 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 King Ethelbert School reported 11 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.5% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at King Ethelbert School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 450 900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 750 places 708 on roll 2011/12 750 places 738 on roll 2012/13 750 places 744 on roll 2013/14 750 places 737 on roll 2014/15 750 places 748 on roll 2015/16 750 places 755 on roll 2016/17 750 places 763 on roll 2017/18 750 places 761 on roll 2018/19 750 places 758 on roll 2020/21 750 places 762 on roll 2021/22 750 places 763 on roll 2022/23 750 places 754 on roll 2023/24 750 places 741 on roll 2024/25 870 places 792 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
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode CT7 9BL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136584).

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.