School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Leigh Academy Wilmington?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 122 families who named Leigh Academy Wilmington as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 221 and 324 put it first.

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

1.47

first choices for every place available

324 first preferences for 221 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Leigh Academy Wilmington

There is no published appeal success rate for Leigh Academy Wilmington, 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

Leigh Academy Wilmington turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 6 of those years. In the other 4 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 Leigh Academy Wilmington, 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 1.22 per place 242 first choices 199 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 211 first choices 238 places 2017/18 0.8 per place 191 first choices 240 places 2018/19 0.97 per place 231 first choices 239 places 2019/20 0.86 per place 202 first choices 236 places 2020/21 0.85 per place 201 first choices 237 places 2021/22 0.68 per place 160 first choices 236 places 2022/23 1.26 per place 291 first choices 231 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 287 first choices 239 places 2024/25 1.56 per place 359 first choices 230 places 2025/26 1.45 per place 324 first choices 223 places 2026/27 1.47 per place 324 first choices 221 places
First preferences per place at Leigh Academy Wilmington. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 324 first preferences for 221 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Leigh Academy Wilmington, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 199 242 148 1.22
2016/17 238 211 185 0.89
2017/18 240 191 185 0.8
2018/19 239 231 202 0.97
2019/20 236 202 162 0.86
2020/21 237 201 185 0.85
2021/22 236 160 137 0.68
2022/23 231 291 210 1.26
2023/24 239 287 209 1.2
2024/25 230 359 206 1.56
2025/26 223 324 193 1.45
2026/27 221 324 202 1.47

Places offered

221

in 2026/27

Named first choice

324

1,146 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

62.3%

202 of 324

Offers to families outside the council

11%

25 of 221 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

1,357

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,181

87% of capacity

Unfilled places

176

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

480

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 Leigh Academy Wilmington 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 Leigh Academy Wilmington reported 176 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 87% 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 Leigh Academy Wilmington from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 950 1,900 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 950 places 772 on roll 2011/12 950 places 798 on roll 2012/13 1,100 places 835 on roll 2013/14 1,100 places 888 on roll 2014/15 1,100 places 942 on roll 2015/16 1,100 places 1,014 on roll 2016/17 1,100 places 1,101 on roll 2017/18 1,400 places 1,151 on roll 2018/19 1,400 places 1,209 on roll 2020/21 1,400 places 1,335 on roll 2021/22 1,400 places 1,334 on roll 2022/23 1,400 places 1,379 on roll 2023/24 1,400 places 1,374 on roll 2024/25 1,837 places 1,364 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 DA2 7DR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136205).

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.