School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St George's Church of England Foundation School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 64 families who named St George's Church of England Foundation School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 207 and 248 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

248 first preferences for 207 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St George's Church of England Foundation School

There is no published appeal success rate for St George's Church of England Foundation 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

St George's Church of England Foundation 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 St George's Church of England Foundation 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 1.62 per place 345 first choices 213 places 2016/17 1.67 per place 359 first choices 215 places 2017/18 1.78 per place 395 first choices 222 places 2018/19 1.85 per place 393 first choices 212 places 2019/20 1.84 per place 390 first choices 212 places 2020/21 1.53 per place 321 first choices 210 places 2021/22 1.15 per place 240 first choices 208 places 2022/23 1.42 per place 289 first choices 204 places 2023/24 1.6 per place 328 first choices 205 places 2024/25 1.43 per place 293 first choices 205 places 2025/26 1.45 per place 295 first choices 204 places 2026/27 1.2 per place 248 first choices 207 places
First preferences per place at St George's Church of England Foundation School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 248 first preferences for 207 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St George's Church of England Foundation School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 213 345 195 1.62
2016/17 215 359 198 1.67
2017/18 222 395 209 1.78
2018/19 212 393 197 1.85
2019/20 212 390 205 1.84
2020/21 210 321 192 1.53
2021/22 208 240 152 1.15
2022/23 204 289 178 1.42
2023/24 205 328 191 1.6
2024/25 205 293 188 1.43
2025/26 204 295 183 1.45
2026/27 207 248 184 1.2

Places offered

207

in 2026/27

Named first choice

248

869 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

74.2%

184 of 248

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 207 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

1,505

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

1,492

99.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

13

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

124

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 St George's Church of England Foundation 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 St George's Church of England Foundation School reported 13 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 99.1% 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 St George's Church of England Foundation School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 850 1,700 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,248 places 1,157 on roll 2010/11 1,250 places 1,191 on roll 2011/12 1,272 places 1,215 on roll 2012/13 1,274 places 1,224 on roll 2013/14 1,282 places 1,245 on roll 2014/15 1,276 places 1,192 on roll 2015/16 1,233 places 1,213 on roll 2016/17 1,696 places 1,344 on roll 2017/18 1,486 places 1,367 on roll 2018/19 1,526 places 1,439 on roll 2020/21 1,606 places 1,590 on roll 2021/22 1,631 places 1,582 on roll 2022/23 1,661 places 1,631 on roll 2023/24 1,661 places 1,633 on roll 2024/25 1,629 places 1,603 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
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode CT10 2LH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118919).

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.