School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wilmington Grammar School for Boys?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 96 families who named Wilmington Grammar School for Boys as their first choice did not get a place: 179 put it first and 83 of them were offered one.

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

96

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

179 first preferences for 180 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wilmington Grammar School for Boys

There is no published appeal success rate for Wilmington Grammar School for Boys, 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

Wilmington Grammar School for Boys turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 9 of those years. In the other 3 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 Wilmington Grammar School for Boys, 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 1.16 per place 171 first choices 148 places 2016/17 1.2 per place 180 first choices 150 places 2017/18 1.01 per place 151 first choices 150 places 2018/19 1.28 per place 192 first choices 150 places 2019/20 1.52 per place 232 first choices 153 places 2020/21 1.04 per place 187 first choices 180 places 2021/22 1.17 per place 204 first choices 175 places 2022/23 0.99 per place 180 first choices 181 places 2023/24 1.02 per place 182 first choices 179 places 2024/25 0.98 per place 175 first choices 179 places 2025/26 1.04 per place 185 first choices 178 places 2026/27 0.99 per place 179 first choices 180 places
First preferences per place at Wilmington Grammar School for Boys. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 179 first preferences for 180 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wilmington Grammar School for Boys, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 148 171 107 1.16
2016/17 150 180 75 1.2
2017/18 150 151 70 1.01
2018/19 150 192 73 1.28
2019/20 153 232 75 1.52
2020/21 180 187 74 1.04
2021/22 175 204 66 1.17
2022/23 181 180 70 0.99
2023/24 179 182 81 1.02
2024/25 179 175 71 0.98
2025/26 178 185 89 1.04
2026/27 180 179 83 0.99

Places offered

180

in 2026/27

Named first choice

179

1,067 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

46.4%

83 of 179

Offers to families outside the council

12%

22 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

928

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

892

96.1% of capacity

Unfilled places

36

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

300

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 Wilmington Grammar School for Boys 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 Wilmington Grammar School for Boys reported 36 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 96.1% 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, 2011/12 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Wilmington Grammar School for Boys from 2011/12 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2011/12 848 places 887 on roll 2012/13 848 places 880 on roll 2013/14 910 places 890 on roll 2014/15 910 places 909 on roll 2015/16 910 places 926 on roll 2016/17 910 places 942 on roll 2017/18 1,000 places 959 on roll 2018/19 1,000 places 959 on roll 2020/21 1,000 places 1,006 on roll 2021/22 1,150 places 1,049 on roll 2022/23 1,200 places 1,077 on roll 2023/24 1,200 places 1,118 on roll 2024/25 1,228 places 1,176 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 DA2 7DA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 137227).

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.