School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Knole Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 58 families who named Knole Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 199 put it first and 141 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.

58

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

199 first preferences for 237 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Knole Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Knole Academy, 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

Knole Academy turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 5 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 Knole Academy, 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 per place 238 first choices 239 places 2016/17 1.04 per place 265 first choices 254 places 2017/18 0.88 per place 210 first choices 239 places 2018/19 0.76 per place 181 first choices 239 places 2019/20 0.89 per place 236 first choices 266 places 2020/21 1.13 per place 283 first choices 250 places 2021/22 1.1 per place 275 first choices 249 places 2022/23 1.14 per place 261 first choices 228 places 2023/24 1.04 per place 250 first choices 240 places 2024/25 1.07 per place 252 first choices 235 places 2025/26 1.06 per place 241 first choices 227 places 2026/27 0.84 per place 199 first choices 237 places
First preferences per place at Knole Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 199 first preferences for 237 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Knole Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 239 238 176 1
2016/17 254 265 198 1.04
2017/18 239 210 177 0.88
2018/19 239 181 156 0.76
2019/20 266 236 178 0.89
2020/21 250 283 181 1.13
2021/22 249 275 173 1.1
2022/23 228 261 181 1.14
2023/24 240 250 176 1.04
2024/25 235 252 175 1.07
2025/26 227 241 158 1.06
2026/27 237 199 141 0.84

Places offered

237

in 2026/27

Named first choice

199

931 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.9%

141 of 199

Offers to families outside the council

10%

23 of 237 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

1,202

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,197

99.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

5

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

350

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 Knole Academy 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 Knole Academy reported 5 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.6% 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 Knole Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 800 1,600 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,550 places 1,175 on roll 2011/12 1,400 places 1,132 on roll 2012/13 1,550 places 1,128 on roll 2013/14 1,550 places 1,150 on roll 2014/15 1,550 places 1,233 on roll 2015/16 1,550 places 1,319 on roll 2016/17 1,550 places 1,362 on roll 2017/18 1,400 places 1,312 on roll 2018/19 1,400 places 1,300 on roll 2020/21 1,400 places 1,401 on roll 2021/22 1,500 places 1,381 on roll 2022/23 1,500 places 1,370 on roll 2023/24 1,500 places 1,348 on roll 2024/25 1,552 places 1,395 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode TN13 3LE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136128).

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.