School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at School of Science and Technology Maidstone?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 136 families who named School of Science and Technology Maidstone as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 186 and 303 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Kent actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 6 years of official figures.

1.63

first choices for every place available

303 first preferences for 186 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at School of Science and Technology Maidstone

There is no published appeal success rate for School of Science and Technology Maidstone, 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

School of Science and Technology Maidstone turned first-choice families away in every one of the 6 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 School of Science and Technology Maidstone, 2021/22 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 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26 26/27 2021/22 1.02 per place 191 first choices 188 places 2022/23 1.77 per place 327 first choices 185 places 2023/24 1.83 per place 346 first choices 189 places 2024/25 1.93 per place 354 first choices 183 places 2025/26 1.55 per place 282 first choices 182 places 2026/27 1.63 per place 303 first choices 186 places
First preferences per place at School of Science and Technology Maidstone. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 303 first preferences for 186 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at School of Science and Technology Maidstone, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2021/22 188 191 132 1.02
2022/23 185 327 171 1.77
2023/24 189 346 179 1.83
2024/25 183 354 169 1.93
2025/26 182 282 170 1.55
2026/27 186 303 167 1.63

Places offered

186

in 2026/27

Named first choice

303

1,168 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

55.1%

167 of 303

Offers to families outside the council

1%

1 of 186 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

951

105.7% of capacity

Over its capacity by

51

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

300

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 School of Science and Technology Maidstone 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 School of Science and Technology Maidstone was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2020/21 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at School of Science and Technology Maidstone from 2020/21 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 20/21 21/22 22/23 23/24 24/25 2020/21 1,200 places 192 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 381 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 578 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 764 on roll 2024/25 1,200 places 951 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
Free schools
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode ME14 5GQ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 144716).

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.