School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at The Royal Harbour Academy?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 57 families who named The Royal Harbour Academy as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 212 and 233 put it first.

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

1.10

first choices for every place available

233 first preferences for 212 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at The Royal Harbour Academy

There is no published appeal success rate for The Royal Harbour 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

The Royal Harbour Academy turned first-choice families away in 3 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 2 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 Royal Harbour 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 0.94 per place 113 first choices 120 places 2016/17 0.52 per place 102 first choices 196 places 2017/18 0.37 per place 85 first choices 231 places 2018/19 0.49 per place 98 first choices 200 places 2019/20 0.38 per place 92 first choices 241 places 2020/21 0.41 per place 101 first choices 244 places 2021/22 0.51 per place 87 first choices 172 places 2022/23 0.74 per place 153 first choices 208 places 2023/24 0.78 per place 149 first choices 190 places 2024/25 0.8 per place 165 first choices 207 places 2025/26 1 per place 212 first choices 213 places 2026/27 1.1 per place 233 first choices 212 places
First preferences per place at The Royal Harbour Academy. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 233 first preferences for 212 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at The Royal Harbour Academy, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 120 113 88 0.94
2016/17 196 102 102 0.52
2017/18 231 85 85 0.37
2018/19 200 98 98 0.49
2019/20 241 92 92 0.38
2020/21 244 101 101 0.41
2021/22 172 87 87 0.51
2022/23 208 153 153 0.74
2023/24 190 149 149 0.78
2024/25 207 165 155 0.8
2025/26 213 212 172 1
2026/27 212 233 176 1.1

Places offered

212

in 2026/27

Named first choice

233

489 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

75.5%

176 of 233

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 212 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 135826.

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

1,199

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

929

77.5% of capacity

Unfilled places

270

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

260

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 Royal Harbour 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 The Royal Harbour Academy reported 270 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 77.5% 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 The Royal Harbour Academy from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 602 places 779 on roll 2010/11 600 places 696 on roll 2011/12 600 places 660 on roll 2012/13 600 places 658 on roll 2013/14 600 places 597 on roll 2014/15 600 places 586 on roll 2015/16 1,200 places 981 on roll 2016/17 1,200 places 843 on roll 2017/18 1,200 places 835 on roll 2018/19 1,200 places 828 on roll 2020/21 1,200 places 886 on roll 2021/22 1,200 places 902 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 918 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 962 on roll 2024/25 1,459 places 996 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 CT12 6FA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149554).

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.