School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 51 families who named Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 145 and 194 put it first.

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

1.34

first choices for every place available

194 first preferences for 145 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys

There is no published appeal success rate for Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, 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 Grammar School for Boys 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 Grammar School for Boys, 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 1.2 per place 142 first choices 118 places 2016/17 1.31 per place 154 first choices 118 places 2017/18 1.44 per place 167 first choices 116 places 2018/19 1.65 per place 191 first choices 116 places 2019/20 1.05 per place 155 first choices 148 places 2020/21 1.25 per place 176 first choices 141 places 2021/22 1.79 per place 258 first choices 144 places 2022/23 1.31 per place 188 first choices 144 places 2023/24 1.15 per place 172 first choices 149 places 2024/25 1.18 per place 173 first choices 146 places 2025/26 1.18 per place 173 first choices 146 places 2026/27 1.34 per place 194 first choices 145 places
First preferences per place at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 194 first preferences for 145 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 118 142 116 1.2
2016/17 118 154 116 1.31
2017/18 116 167 113 1.44
2018/19 116 191 114 1.65
2019/20 148 155 142 1.05
2020/21 141 176 131 1.25
2021/22 144 258 142 1.79
2022/23 144 188 140 1.31
2023/24 149 172 147 1.15
2024/25 146 173 142 1.18
2025/26 146 173 146 1.18
2026/27 145 194 143 1.34

Places offered

145

in 2026/27

Named first choice

194

479 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

73.7%

143 of 194

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 145 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

825

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

804

97.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

21

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

440

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 Grammar School for Boys 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 Grammar School for Boys reported 21 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97.5% 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 Grammar School for Boys 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 2009/10 947 places 1,009 on roll 2010/11 971 places 1,030 on roll 2011/12 983 places 1,045 on roll 2012/13 1,030 places 1,116 on roll 2013/14 1,061 places 1,125 on roll 2014/15 1,075 places 1,131 on roll 2015/16 1,078 places 1,140 on roll 2016/17 1,094 places 1,153 on roll 2017/18 1,080 places 1,144 on roll 2018/19 1,043 places 1,088 on roll 2020/21 1,144 places 1,236 on roll 2021/22 1,250 places 1,240 on roll 2022/23 1,250 places 1,241 on roll 2023/24 1,250 places 1,236 on roll 2024/25 1,265 places 1,209 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
Foundation school
Admissions policy
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode CT4 7AS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118884).

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.