School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Tonbridge Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 181 families who named Tonbridge Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 180 and 353 put it first.

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

1.96

first choices for every place available

353 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Tonbridge Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Tonbridge Grammar 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

Tonbridge Grammar 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 Tonbridge Grammar 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 1.44 per place 242 first choices 168 places 2016/17 1.88 per place 325 first choices 173 places 2017/18 1.83 per place 328 first choices 179 places 2018/19 1.56 per place 281 first choices 180 places 2019/20 1.62 per place 291 first choices 180 places 2020/21 1.59 per place 281 first choices 177 places 2021/22 1.9 per place 342 first choices 180 places 2022/23 1.79 per place 321 first choices 179 places 2023/24 1.64 per place 295 first choices 180 places 2024/25 1.73 per place 311 first choices 180 places 2025/26 1.68 per place 302 first choices 180 places 2026/27 1.96 per place 353 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Tonbridge Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 353 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Tonbridge Grammar School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 168 242 153 1.44
2016/17 173 325 167 1.88
2017/18 179 328 173 1.83
2018/19 180 281 173 1.56
2019/20 180 291 174 1.62
2020/21 177 281 173 1.59
2021/22 180 342 170 1.9
2022/23 179 321 165 1.79
2023/24 180 295 173 1.64
2024/25 180 311 161 1.73
2025/26 180 302 170 1.68
2026/27 180 353 172 1.96

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

353

975 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

48.7%

172 of 353

Offers to families outside the council

15%

27 of 180 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

1,067

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

899

84.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

168

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

360

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 Tonbridge Grammar 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 Tonbridge Grammar School reported 168 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 84.3% 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 Tonbridge Grammar School from 2010/11 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 10/11 12/13 14/15 16/17 18/19 21/22 23/24 24/25 2010/11 1,109 places 1,056 on roll 2011/12 1,050 places 1,049 on roll 2012/13 1,136 places 1,002 on roll 2013/14 1,170 places 997 on roll 2014/15 1,170 places 1,075 on roll 2015/16 1,170 places 1,142 on roll 2016/17 1,170 places 1,140 on roll 2017/18 1,260 places 1,167 on roll 2018/19 1,260 places 1,181 on roll 2020/21 1,260 places 1,184 on roll 2021/22 1,260 places 1,154 on roll 2022/23 1,260 places 1,131 on roll 2023/24 1,260 places 1,136 on roll 2024/25 1,427 places 1,163 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 converter
Admissions policy
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode TN9 2JR. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 136417).

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.