School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Skinners' Kent Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 26 families who named Skinners' Kent Academy as their first choice did not get a place: 166 put it first and 140 of them were offered one.

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

26

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

166 first preferences for 173 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Skinners' Kent Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for Skinners' Kent Academy, 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

Skinners' Kent Academy turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 4 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Skinners' Kent Academy, 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 1.22 per place 217 first choices 178 places 2016/17 0.89 per place 186 first choices 210 places 2017/18 1.2 per place 214 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.31 per place 235 first choices 179 places 2019/20 0.86 per place 204 first choices 237 places 2020/21 0.79 per place 182 first choices 230 places 2021/22 0.86 per place 153 first choices 178 places 2022/23 0.99 per place 176 first choices 177 places 2023/24 1.18 per place 208 first choices 176 places 2024/25 0.95 per place 169 first choices 177 places 2025/26 0.96 per place 168 first choices 175 places 2026/27 0.96 per place 166 first choices 173 places
First preferences per place at Skinners' Kent Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 166 first preferences for 173 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Skinners' Kent Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 178 217 146 1.22
2016/17 210 186 177 0.89
2017/18 179 214 140 1.2
2018/19 179 235 150 1.31
2019/20 237 204 189 0.86
2020/21 230 182 170 0.79
2021/22 178 153 111 0.86
2022/23 177 176 137 0.99
2023/24 176 208 158 1.18
2024/25 177 169 162 0.95
2025/26 175 168 146 0.96
2026/27 173 166 140 0.96

Places offered

173

in 2026/27

Named first choice

166

618 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.3%

140 of 166

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 173 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

873

97% of capacity

Unfilled places

27

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

250

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 Skinners' Kent Academy 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 Skinners' Kent Academy reported 27 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 97% 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 Skinners' Kent Academy from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,050 places 299 on roll 2011/12 1,150 places 327 on roll 2012/13 1,150 places 408 on roll 2013/14 1,150 places 531 on roll 2014/15 1,150 places 666 on roll 2015/16 1,150 places 769 on roll 2016/17 1,150 places 832 on roll 2017/18 1,150 places 892 on roll 2018/19 1,150 places 969 on roll 2020/21 1,150 places 1,073 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,094 on roll 2022/23 1,150 places 1,075 on roll 2023/24 1,150 places 1,040 on roll 2024/25 1,150 places 1,025 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 sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode TN2 4PY. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 135888).

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.