School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 45 families who named Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 180 and 220 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

220 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Queen Elizabeth's 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

Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School 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 Queen Elizabeth's 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 1.25 per place 175 first choices 140 places 2016/17 1.27 per place 178 first choices 140 places 2017/18 1.44 per place 200 first choices 139 places 2018/19 1.36 per place 190 first choices 140 places 2019/20 1.35 per place 187 first choices 139 places 2020/21 1.24 per place 171 first choices 138 places 2021/22 1.83 per place 272 first choices 149 places 2022/23 1.38 per place 204 first choices 148 places 2023/24 1.2 per place 213 first choices 178 places 2024/25 1.29 per place 231 first choices 179 places 2025/26 1.18 per place 211 first choices 179 places 2026/27 1.22 per place 220 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 220 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Queen Elizabeth's 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
2015/16 140 175 139 1.25
2016/17 140 178 133 1.27
2017/18 139 200 136 1.44
2018/19 140 190 131 1.36
2019/20 139 187 139 1.35
2020/21 138 171 133 1.24
2021/22 149 272 140 1.83
2022/23 148 204 145 1.38
2023/24 178 213 173 1.2
2024/25 179 231 177 1.29
2025/26 179 211 176 1.18
2026/27 180 220 175 1.22

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

220

535 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

79.5%

175 of 220

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 180 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

900

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

823

91.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

77

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

315

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 Queen Elizabeth's 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 Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School reported 77 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 91.4% 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, 2010/11 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 879 places 875 on roll 2011/12 891 places 887 on roll 2012/13 940 places 909 on roll 2013/14 940 places 933 on roll 2014/15 940 places 924 on roll 2015/16 940 places 954 on roll 2016/17 940 places 971 on roll 2017/18 940 places 978 on roll 2018/19 940 places 954 on roll 2020/21 940 places 1,017 on roll 2021/22 940 places 1,030 on roll 2022/23 1,050 places 1,015 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,057 on roll 2024/25 1,215 places 1,089 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 ME13 7BQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136570).

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.