School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 37 families who named Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 166 and 199 put it first.

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

1.20

first choices for every place available

199 first preferences for 166 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Simon Langton Girls' 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

Simon Langton Girls' 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 Simon Langton Girls' 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 1.08 per place 150 first choices 139 places 2016/17 1.06 per place 173 first choices 163 places 2017/18 1.05 per place 137 first choices 131 places 2018/19 1.04 per place 152 first choices 146 places 2019/20 1.11 per place 175 first choices 157 places 2020/21 1.1 per place 156 first choices 142 places 2021/22 1.56 per place 244 first choices 156 places 2022/23 1.13 per place 187 first choices 165 places 2023/24 1.11 per place 199 first choices 179 places 2024/25 1.07 per place 176 first choices 164 places 2025/26 1.12 per place 184 first choices 165 places 2026/27 1.2 per place 199 first choices 166 places
First preferences per place at Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 199 first preferences for 166 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Simon Langton Girls' 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
2015/16 139 150 137 1.08
2016/17 163 173 152 1.06
2017/18 131 137 120 1.05
2018/19 146 152 135 1.04
2019/20 157 175 150 1.11
2020/21 142 156 132 1.1
2021/22 156 244 155 1.56
2022/23 165 187 156 1.13
2023/24 179 199 177 1.11
2024/25 164 176 160 1.07
2025/26 165 184 163 1.12
2026/27 166 199 162 1.2

Places offered

166

in 2026/27

Named first choice

199

507 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

81.4%

162 of 199

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 166 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

891

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

875

98.2% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

400

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 Simon Langton Girls' 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 Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School reported 16 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.2% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,032 places 1,055 on roll 2010/11 1,042 places 1,095 on roll 2011/12 1,076 places 1,117 on roll 2012/13 1,074 places 1,082 on roll 2013/14 1,088 places 1,086 on roll 2014/15 1,099 places 1,108 on roll 2015/16 1,086 places 1,085 on roll 2016/17 1,182 places 1,102 on roll 2017/18 1,050 places 1,113 on roll 2018/19 1,119 places 1,101 on roll 2020/21 1,119 places 1,171 on roll 2021/22 1,119 places 1,218 on roll 2022/23 1,119 places 1,242 on roll 2023/24 1,119 places 1,242 on roll 2024/25 1,291 places 1,250 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
Voluntary controlled school
Admissions policy
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode CT1 3EW. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118840).

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.