Kent’s grammar school system has a £7.2m maths problem

Catch up

Kent County Council has been very keen to clarify that it did not approve an extension of Hermitage Quarry into Oaken Wood. This is technically true, in much the same way that opening a door is not the same as walking through it. We looked at what councillors actually decided, why the wording matters and how the vote moved the quarry one significant step closer.

Elsewhere at County Hall, Reform’s new requirement to end meetings with the national anthem met an obstacle nobody had apparently considered: the anthem has more than one verse. Opposition councillors kept singing, Reform started packing up, and the automatic subtitles decided everyone was performing The Star-Spangled Banner. Our weekly catch-up has the full constitutional triumph, alongside another South East Water failure, and a £7m sewage fine.

Finally, our latest interview begins with a belief in the power of brevity. We could explain at considerable length why you should read it, but that would rather undermine the point. Read the full conversation here.

Kent’s grammar school system has a £7.2m maths problem

Kent’s grammar school system has developed a maths problem. Unfortunately, it is one that will cost £7.2m to solve.

Last year, 401 boys around Maidstone qualified for selective education. The area’s two boys’ grammar schools had 365 Year 7 places between them.

Kent County Council’s proposed solution is a permanent expansion of Oakwood Park Grammar School, adding another 30 pupils to every intake from September 2027.

The plans include three more classrooms, an extension to the school’s science facilities and a new three-court sports hall.

It will ease the shortage, but it will not entirely fix the imbalance.

Maidstone’s four grammar schools currently offer 815 places each year. Girls receive 450 of them, or 55%. Boys receive 365.

That split runs in the opposite direction to demand. Boys accounted for around 52% of children who qualified through the Kent Test in the area last year and approximately 51% of its wider pupil population.

Invicta Grammar School offers 240 places for girls, while Maidstone Grammar School for Girls has 210. On the boys’ side, Maidstone Grammar School offers 205 places, and Oakwood Park has 160.

Expanding Oakwood Park would bring the boys’ total up to 395. That is closer to the 450 places available for girls, although still some way from equal.

There is a reason the girls currently have more capacity. Maidstone Grammar School for Girls was expanded by 30 places in 2023. Three years later, the council is preparing to make a corresponding move on the boys’ side.

KCC describes the proposal as an attempt to “seek to secure equity in single-sex places.” Or, put more simply, too many boys are passing the test for the number of desks currently waiting for them.

The pressure is already visible. At the end of January, Oakwood Park had no spare Year 7 places, while Maidstone Grammar School was six pupils above its official admission number.

Around 90% of grammar-qualified boys living in the Maidstone and Malling area attend one of those two schools, leaving KCC with few alternative places to send them.

The shortage has not been caused by a sudden surge in Kent Test success. Since 2021, around a quarter of Year 6 pupils in the area have been assessed as suitable for grammar school. That proportion has remained broadly stable.

What has changed is the number of children.

The grammar-qualified cohort grew from 749 pupils in 2021 to 780 last year. KCC says this reflects population growth rather than any significant change in test participation or pass rates.

Much of that growth has followed sustained housebuilding around Maidstone. Housing completions increased significantly from 2016 onwards, and development is expected to continue into the 2030s.

Those new homes require more than roads, surgeries and occasional arguments about whether a nearby roundabout can cope. They also produce children, who eventually require school places.

Maidstone’s secondary-age population has not yet reached its expected peak. KCC forecasts that Year 7 numbers will continue rising through the rest of the decade, leaving the area short of between one and two forms of grammar entry if nothing changes.

In most of England, a shortage of secondary places is principally a question of geography. Kent has made the exercise rather more elaborate.

Here, the council also has to estimate how many children will sit an exam, how many will pass, whether they are boys or girls and which of the area’s single-sex schools they could reasonably attend. Every new housing estate eventually works its way into a spreadsheet about the 11-plus.

The Oakwood Park project would add three general teaching classrooms, expand the school’s science accommodation and provide a three-court sports hall. Parts of the existing school would also be remodelled.

The £7.2m would come from KCC’s Basic Need capital programme, which exists to ensure the county has enough school places. It is funded through a mixture of government grants, borrowing and contributions from housing developers.

Around £411,500 of the cost is expected to come from developer contributions. Planning permission is still required, with the application process already underway.

The proposal is described as creating 30 places, but that is 30 additional pupils in every new Year 7 intake. Once the larger year groups have worked their way through the school, Oakwood Park would accommodate around 150 more children across Years 7 to 11.

That puts the construction cost at approximately £48,000 for each eventual additional place, rather than the rather more alarming £240,000 produced by dividing £7.2m by the first 30 boys through the door.

KCC considered expanding Maidstone Grammar School instead but concluded that further development there would be more difficult. Since the area has only two boys’ grammar schools, the list of alternatives was not especially long.

If approved, Oakwood Park’s larger intake would begin in September 2027.

By then, another year of housebuilding will have passed, and another cohort will be preparing for the Kent Test. In Maidstone, the school place calculations rarely stay still for long.

Three big reads

1️⃣ We begin with the government’s entirely sensible decision to merge Folkestone and Hythe with Ashford and Swale, creating a new council stretching from the Channel to the Isle of Sheppey. Local opposition appears to have counted for little, as did such old-fashioned considerations as geography and whether the places involved have much to do with one another. The Folkestone Dispatch examines the creation of this administrative monster and the questionable case used to justify it.

2️⃣ Next, another Brexit bonus for Kent. The EU’s Entry/Exit System could leave travellers facing a six-hour procession through holding areas, portable toilets and burger vans, with Folkestone Racecourse becoming an enormous car park when the queues get particularly bad. The i paper takes the journey through the elaborate machinery being assembled to stop Britain’s new border arrangements from bringing east Kent to a halt.

3️⃣ Finally to Dover, where weeks of online boasting produced a far-right march of around 50 people, many of whom had travelled from elsewhere in the country. There was one arrest, speeches nobody could hear, and a complaint from the stage that passing residents had declined to join in. Searchlight reports on a damp squib made damper still by the organisers reportedly breaking down on the M2 and arriving in an AA recovery truck.

In brief

💩 Former bosses of Southern Water are to face trial over allegations that they manipulated sewage data to avoid fines.

🚰 Darent Valley Hospital is still having to provide bottled water to patients, months after water supply issues began.

🧑‍🚒 Kent Fire Brigades' Union will stage a rally at County Hall next week to save stations from closure and protect jobs.

♻️ A Kent skip operator from Stockbury has lost its permit to operate following an investigation by the Environment Agency.

🚓 Pretty grim reporting on the state of Maidstone town centre at night.

🚗 The Thanet Way should be a little less bumpy now.

🏘️ Which is good news for the 300 new homes that have been approved in Chestfield.

🏫 Swale is facing a shortfall of 150 secondary school places.

💷 Thanet District Council's cash reserves are 'critically low'.

🚚 Kent County Council would rather you didn't dispose of your fridge right now.

🚛 A Ramsgate resident is launching court action against Thanet District Council over rubbish bin collections.

📡 A British aerospace firm trying to rival Elon Musk's Starlink has begun raising £37m to begin manufacturing at Lydd.

💣 Archaeologists in Iwade have dug up a Nazi bomb.

🎤 The BBC, for some reason, has been asking the people of Margate what they want from Andy Burnham.

🥗 Sainsbury's has launched a Kent-grown salad box.

🏖️ Plans for new seating on Whitstable beach have not proven popular.

🏊 Some hard-hitting journalism from Great British Life, which has been to talk to people who are happiest by the sea.

💃 It was Kate Bush day again in Folkestone.

🪜 Meanwhile, if you need to hide from thousands of Kate Bushes (Bushi?), a Cold War bunker in the town could be yours for £45,000.

Council matters

Meetings this week:

• Dartford: General Assembly of the Council meets this evening (Monday), with an agenda including a motion calling on the government to compensate the borough for disruption from the Dartford Crossing.
• Tonbridge & Malling: Planning Committee will decide on a 1,300 home development in Aylesford and 65 new homes in Kings Hill on Thursday.

New planning applications:

• Dover: New Domino's within the Travelodge at Sandwich Discovery Park.
• Maidstone: Conversion of football pitches to padel courts at Maidstone YMCA.

Property of the week

This week’s property is the Mersham village shop, which also happens to come with a three-bedroom flat upstairs, a generous rear garden and the sort of property description that starts wandering into phrases like 'mixed-use opportunity.' The Grade II listed building is being sold with the shop already let on a 10-year commercial lease, providing rental income, while the upstairs apartment has its own separate entrance and parking. There is also an unused section of the ground floor that could potentially become additional accommodation, and an independent planning appraisal suggesting the garden may have development potential, subject to the usual planning caveats. It is one of those properties where buying a home also means accidentally becoming a landlord, and it is on the market for offers over £400,000.

Check out this 4 bedroom detached house for sale on Rightmove

4 bedroom detached house for sale in The Street, Mersham, Ashford, Kent, TN25 for £400,000. Marketed by Hobbs Parker Estate Agents, Ashford

Rightmove.co.uk

Events this week

🎉 Until 1 Aug - Deal 2026 // Deal Carnival celebrates its 200th anniversary with promenade parties, fireworks, a carnival procession, reggae and ska, and a classic car show. Various locations, Deal. Free.

🎤 Thu 30 Jul - Michelle Wolf: Best Job in the World // Former Daily Show correspondent tours stand-up show. Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury. Tickets £30.

🎸 Fri 31 Jul - Belle and Sebastian // 30th anniversary celebration of their incredible If You're Feeling Sinister album. Dreamland, Margate. Tickets from £64.

✈️ Sat 1 Aug - Rochester Airport Family Fun Day and Air Display // Air displays, fun fair, food and drink, and live entertainment. Rochester Airport. Tickets £17.50.

🚜 1 - 2 Aug - Weald of Kent Steam and Country Show // More than 30 full-size steam engines alongside a Victorian fair, working machinery, classic vehicles and traditional sideshows. Little Engeham Farm, Woodchurch. Tickets £15.

Footnotes

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