School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 43 families who named Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 210 and 238 put it first.

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

1.13

first choices for every place available

238 first preferences for 210 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend

There is no published appeal success rate for Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend, 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

Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend, 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 1.3 per place 188 first choices 145 places 2016/17 1.22 per place 177 first choices 145 places 2017/18 1.2 per place 204 first choices 170 places 2018/19 1.27 per place 229 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.11 per place 199 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.35 per place 243 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.26 per place 264 first choices 210 places 2022/23 1.01 per place 212 first choices 210 places 2023/24 1.04 per place 218 first choices 210 places 2024/25 1.27 per place 267 first choices 210 places 2025/26 1.16 per place 244 first choices 210 places 2026/27 1.13 per place 238 first choices 210 places
First preferences per place at Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 238 first preferences for 210 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 145 188 139 1.3
2016/17 145 177 138 1.22
2017/18 170 204 148 1.2
2018/19 180 229 172 1.27
2019/20 180 199 161 1.11
2020/21 180 243 165 1.35
2021/22 210 264 171 1.26
2022/23 210 212 169 1.01
2023/24 210 218 168 1.04
2024/25 210 267 175 1.27
2025/26 210 244 193 1.16
2026/27 210 238 195 1.13

Places offered

210

in 2026/27

Named first choice

238

593 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.9%

195 of 238

Offers to families outside the council

0%

1 of 210 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

1,181

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,059

89.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

122

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend 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 Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend reported 122 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 89.7% 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 Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend 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 2011/12 992 places 986 on roll 2012/13 992 places 978 on roll 2013/14 995 places 972 on roll 2014/15 995 places 936 on roll 2015/16 995 places 966 on roll 2016/17 995 places 998 on roll 2017/18 995 places 1,058 on roll 2018/19 995 places 1,126 on roll 2020/21 1,170 places 1,201 on roll 2021/22 1,340 places 1,316 on roll 2022/23 1,400 places 1,346 on roll 2023/24 1,410 places 1,390 on roll 2024/25 1,541 places 1,427 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 DA11 0JE. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137834).

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.