School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Malling School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 101 families who named The Malling School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 150 and 247 put it first.

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

1.65

first choices for every place available

247 first preferences for 150 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Malling School

There is no published appeal success rate for The Malling 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

The Malling School turned first-choice families away in 8 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 7 of those years. In the other 1 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 The Malling 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 0.76 per place 86 first choices 113 places 2016/17 0.93 per place 137 first choices 148 places 2017/18 0.95 per place 159 first choices 168 places 2018/19 1.2 per place 214 first choices 178 places 2019/20 0.94 per place 168 first choices 178 places 2020/21 1.07 per place 163 first choices 153 places 2021/22 0.75 per place 118 first choices 157 places 2022/23 1.35 per place 207 first choices 153 places 2023/24 1.68 per place 244 first choices 145 places 2024/25 1.87 per place 297 first choices 159 places 2025/26 1.84 per place 270 first choices 147 places 2026/27 1.65 per place 247 first choices 150 places
First preferences per place at The Malling School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 247 first preferences for 150 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Malling School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 113 86 86 0.76
2016/17 148 137 137 0.93
2017/18 168 159 144 0.95
2018/19 178 214 157 1.2
2019/20 178 168 135 0.94
2020/21 153 163 132 1.07
2021/22 157 118 117 0.75
2022/23 153 207 144 1.35
2023/24 145 244 130 1.68
2024/25 159 297 153 1.87
2025/26 147 270 143 1.84
2026/27 150 247 146 1.65

Places offered

150

in 2026/27

Named first choice

247

616 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

59.1%

146 of 247

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 150 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

1,030

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

892

86.6% of capacity

Unfilled places

138

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

110

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 The Malling 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 The Malling School reported 138 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 86.6% 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 The Malling School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 600 1,200 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 988 places 448 on roll 2010/11 1,015 places 480 on roll 2011/12 1,026 places 509 on roll 2012/13 1,006 places 525 on roll 2013/14 1,006 places 573 on roll 2014/15 995 places 615 on roll 2015/16 1,008 places 649 on roll 2016/17 1,012 places 726 on roll 2017/18 1,021 places 818 on roll 2018/19 1,021 places 874 on roll 2020/21 1,006 places 1,006 on roll 2021/22 1,042 places 1,005 on roll 2022/23 1,042 places 1,004 on roll 2023/24 1,042 places 1,040 on roll 2024/25 1,140 places 1,037 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
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode ME19 6DH. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118897).

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.