School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 82 families who named Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 174 and 228 put it first.

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

1.31

first choices for every place available

228 first preferences for 174 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School

There is no published appeal success rate for Tunbridge Wells Girls' 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

Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 11 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 Tunbridge Wells Girls' 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 1.3 per place 182 first choices 140 places 2016/17 1.19 per place 166 first choices 140 places 2017/18 1.14 per place 166 first choices 145 places 2018/19 1.21 per place 175 first choices 145 places 2019/20 0.94 per place 137 first choices 145 places 2020/21 1.15 per place 166 first choices 144 places 2021/22 1.74 per place 252 first choices 145 places 2022/23 1.1 per place 160 first choices 145 places 2023/24 1.53 per place 222 first choices 145 places 2024/25 1.29 per place 224 first choices 174 places 2025/26 1.22 per place 213 first choices 174 places 2026/27 1.31 per place 228 first choices 174 places
First preferences per place at Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 228 first preferences for 174 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Tunbridge Wells Girls' 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
2015/16 140 182 130 1.3
2016/17 140 166 125 1.19
2017/18 145 166 121 1.14
2018/19 145 175 138 1.21
2019/20 145 137 112 0.94
2020/21 144 166 116 1.15
2021/22 145 252 126 1.74
2022/23 145 160 120 1.1
2023/24 145 222 133 1.53
2024/25 174 224 160 1.29
2025/26 174 213 153 1.22
2026/27 174 228 146 1.31

Places offered

174

in 2026/27

Named first choice

228

786 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

64%

146 of 228

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 174 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

811

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

797

98.3% of capacity

Unfilled places

14

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

350

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 Tunbridge Wells Girls' 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 Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School reported 14 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.3% 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, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar 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 2009/10 965 places 1,027 on roll 2010/11 970 places 1,038 on roll 2011/12 974 places 1,041 on roll 2012/13 984 places 1,009 on roll 2013/14 984 places 1,011 on roll 2014/15 977 places 994 on roll 2015/16 973 places 1,010 on roll 2016/17 1,032 places 1,024 on roll 2017/18 995 places 1,033 on roll 2018/19 997 places 1,028 on roll 2020/21 1,008 places 1,022 on roll 2021/22 1,008 places 998 on roll 2022/23 1,008 places 986 on roll 2023/24 1,008 places 1,039 on roll 2024/25 1,161 places 1,092 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
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode TN4 9UJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 118789).

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.