Dartford Grammar School (DGS) New Admission Criteria

Interesting post the catchment is now very wide and if you are lucky to get a place from new barn etc or some lovely village, how does your son get to school? You probably need to move closer to the school. I did this for my daughter as her attendance was poor given the commute.

Here is the rub, the school is very close to crayford and bexley, so if you move closer for one son, the second can not have the same opportunities. Maybe in a few years there will be buses there, but in the meantime? I d love to live in some of the new catchment but it's not practical. I don't know if this will cause scores to drop, bigger catchment but few applications from those areas?

Does any one from the wider catchment have a plan I would love to know?

Pretty sure that as the only staff that form part of the governing body are the head and the staff representative, you've overstepped your authority to answer on behalf of the school here. If you click report and explain to MN, they'll likely delete it.

Hi Pincopalla,

Thanks for your question. I am a teacher at Dartford Grammar School and was part of the discussion on whether to change the admissions policy last year. I supported keeping the admissions to 90 IC / 90 OOC but also appreciate why we moved to 135 IC / 45 OOC.

For reference:

IC - In catchment.

OOC - Out of catchment.

Hopefully I can share a coupe of details of why we changed the catchment area and the split.

The motivation for the change centred around there being a lack of grammar school access in areas of North West Kent such as Meopham, Hartley, West Kingsdown and South Darenth. This map shows the gap in grammar school provision: https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/interactive-map-of-grammar-schools/.

As a result, a significant proportion of the staff were in favour of expanding the catchment area to include these areas. The policies from 2018 and 2025 show the differing catchment (though it did take me a while to compare the areas covered). For reference:

2018: https://www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/68118/Dartford-Grammar-School-admissions-criteria-2018-2019.pdf

2025: https://www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/164456/Dartford-Grammar-School-admissions-criteria-2025-2026.pdf

We felt that, with a larger catchment, the 90 / 90 split should be changed. There were discussions over how large to make the new IC intake. The Head presented strong evidence that the average 11+ score wouldn't change significantly even with a 135 IC / 45 OOC split. Like most changes, I suspect the 50% increase in IC places 'felt about right'.

I have a personal interest in this matter. When I attended DGS, I scored high enough to attain an OOC place. This made me want to keep the 90 IC / 90 OOC split.

Likewise, when I was at Dartford, the sibling policy was in place. Siblings used to get preferential access. I'm not sure why this has changed, but I'll ask next week and try to get back to you.

Thanks for the discussion here and best of luck if your son is applying in the coming year!

Mr R.

OP, you reference a desire for consistency, but consider boys living in the LB of Bromley whose one selective school gives no priority to applicants for living within the home LA. In considering the school in question, you need to consider the LA’s sufficiency duty, especially given it is a fully selective LA at secondary phase.

Yes you are right @SheilaFentiman .

The 13 local pupil premium is also minimum 20 above 332 in rank order and the 5 pupil premium ooc the same. Re the latter, I hope those kids can get help with cost of transport. Otherwise it becomes disingenuous - like the Olave’s pupil premium in top 450. It’s a difficult balance to strike when the schools are so academically competitive. They are under political pressure but unless the child is truly naturally able and gets help, it isn’t necessarily in their best interest.

As I have said, OOC sibling or no sibling with a strong case can appeal anyway. They just have to prove the detriment to them is greater than the detriment to the school of admitting the extra pupil. If they have a score above the local area threshold, So the OP could potentially appeal for a younger OOC sibling.
Grammars find it difficult to increase PAN in certain areas and maybe this kind of admissions policy ends up in them taking more kids and it’s actually intended. Who knows. They will get extra funding for additional pupils.

the test was harder and 40 above pass reflects a top cohort in percentage terms

Isn’t it a minimum of 40 above, so it might end up more?

I have never looked at the admissions code re ranking and siblings so I decided to have a read as OP is so strident.

The code is extremely clear, even going to the effort of bold type facing the words must not with regard to having a sibling rule if the school admits based on ranking.

I'm not sure how anyone could interpret this as an opinion.

From OPs perspective, yes it's annoying and feels unfair when the goalposts change particularly relating to school admissions as it can get very emotive but the admissions criteria the school has applied seems to be very clear and in line with the code.

I wonder why I am getting attacked by some many here, I assume because it suits them to be able to apply to both Bexley Grammars and Dartford ones, whilst those on the other side of the border are only allocated a handful of places in the OOC category 2 in DGS.

You are not getting attacked. People are disagreeing with you. Everyone who has posted about the code has disagreed with your interpretation.

I don’t live anywhere near Bexley/Dartford and my two are already in secondary. I don’t think there is anyone on the thread in your area. Not sure why you have a persecution complex here.

“Where the Kent Test Score is greater than the lowest inner area score of 383, parents do not need to persuade the panel that your son is of the academic standard for the school. In such cases, the School Admission Appeals Code only requires the panel to balance your case (why this is the best school to meet your child’s needs) against the school’s own prejudice to education case. However, where the score is less than 383, parents will need to persuade the panel that your child is of the standard for the school. “

This is from the Judd website.

Dartford is two tier now too and they are opening themselves up to multiple appeals! All of OOC that are in excess of their now lowish local standard are academically good enough for the school. I hope they have had legal advice on this aspect. They should either go the Skinner route (distance based with same score) or ditch the OOC completely. Having such a gap in scores between local and OOC - does anyone have a precedent for it to work?

Schools need to decide if they are superselective or not. Like I said, Dartford does the stringent IB. They haven’t thought this through, in my opinion. They have caved to local political pressure and I would surmise that they know it. I think they need a higher benchmark above pass if they want to continue with the IB. But maybe I am wrong and the algorithms do work and this year the test was harder and 40 above pass reflects a top cohort in percentage terms? It’s not what I see from the data though - although I was just counting how many kids were very top scorers.

Ah ok @Lougle We can all read 🤣 Not sure why reading comprehension has become 'opinion' on this thread!

@Pincopalla it's not inconsistent. Literally no one has agreed with you that it's inconsistent. I don't have anything in this game - my kids are well beyond 11+ age. No one is attacking you but people are getting frustrated because you refuse to listen. And I still don't understand what you are hoping to achieve from your personal crusade to prove that this should could have a sibling policy if they wanted to. It's clearly against the admissions code, but if you disagree, rather than try to argue it here then I recommend you take it up with your relevant local authority.

To be fair, I'm not massively expert. I used to sit on panels but I'm not in a grammar area. I can read, though.

@Pincopalla why are you even bothering to ask here if you aren't willing to listen to true experts in this area like Lougle? I don't understand what you're trying to achieve. You may not like what the admissions code says, but there's no uncertainty on what it says!

@Pincopalla - the data of exact scores for many years and how many boys in each category together with their scores is on the Kent website.

Google Kent test, Kent scores and you will have all the data from 2015-2024 on scores broken down by category.

This year there were still a lot of OOC, people haven’t clocked yet how few places there are. If the brightest kids all end up going to Bexley grammars or Sutton in the future, those schools will get better results too. I think a fair bit of South East London can access Bexley grammars. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

40 above pass is what Skinners do. Their GCSE results are below Dartford. Dartford’s GCSE results for this new cohort are going to be lower. If they admit siblings at a lower level the results will go even lower. My prediction is give it a few years and Judd will outrank them again. Once their results drop the highest achievers don’t even put Dartford 1st anymore which leads to a further decline of results.

You cannot compare to passing Stage 1 St Olave’s- top 450. Every boy I know who passed Stage 1 this year has high Kent test scores, around 400 and above in Kent.

This year when you look at the Kent test results there appear to be half the amount of OOC/All private top scorers 402 and above compared to 2023. The best scorers proportionally are in this category.

And for those eligible for Pupil Premium that score the highest. So they could be the lowest scoring ten boys that aren't actually LAC/Post-LAC or EHCP admissions.

Plus once they get to in year applications, anybody who the school is directed to take through FAP if they've scored highly enough gets a place first over the waiting list. Again, absolutely legal and no sibling priority.

"-Boys who are Children Looked After (registered in public care) or who were Looked After but ceased to be so because they were adopted or became subject to a child arrangements orders or special guardianship order, including those who appear [to the admission authority] to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted by rank order. All such children who have been placed in the initial top 450 and who have taken the subsequent tests will be admitted;

• A maximum of 10 places will be available for boys in receipt of Pupil Premium by rank order; "

From St Olaves. They do. The only difference is that they don't give priority to a specific zone.

St Olave’s, with 124 places, allows LAC and previously LAC the first priority (after EHCP naming the school) provided that they are in the top 450 ie well outside the usual rank that would be required.

https://stolaves.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/document/Admissions-Policy-2025-26.pdf?t=1729533113?ts=1729533113

And right after the LAC is pupil premium (10 places)

And what you say is an opinion, OP, and is not a widespread opinion - indeed is a unique opinion on the thread.

They can't. The Admissions Code doesn't allow them to.

It's a shame for those Mrs Xs of the world whose younger son hasn't done as well in the test as her first born, but if he isn't in the top 40-45 of out of area kids, he'll have to go somewhere else.

@Lougle it is a great document for clarity!

That is exceedingly clear that all places are given by ranked score

1. Priority area LAC
2. Priority area Previously LAC
3. 13 places for Priority area Pupil Premium children with scores >20 above Kent threshold score
4. Remaining places up to 130 for Priority area children with scores >40 above Kent threshold score
5. Other area LAC
6. Other area Previously LAC
7. 5 places for Other area Pupil Premium children with scores >20 above Kent threshold score
8. Places up to 180 for any child remaining, who has not been so far allocated, in test score order.

This means that a child who lives in priority area with a score of 25 over the Kent threshold score could take a place in category 8, for example.