Admissions FAQs

We are a state school. We are free to join. We are a Free School, i.e. a school set up by an organization or group of individuals, funded by the government but not controlled by the local authority. We open with year 7 in 2023 and will grow each year until completing our first A’ Levels in 2030.

We are a mixed school with boys and girls, and a non-selective school with no academic entry requirements. Whilst being non-selective, we aim to be academically challenging for all students.

There has been high demand for Chilmington Green School and, as such, we have received a large number of applications. Places have therefore been offered based on our oversubscription criteria, which can be found on page 2 of our Admissions Arrangements 2023/24.

This means a first round of offers will be sent out to 120 year 7 pupils on 1st March when we will ask families to accept either a place at Chilmington Green School or a KCC place at another local school. We appreciate that this will be a very important decision for families but they will need to select one of the two offers they have received.

Occasionally Kent County Council ask schools to take more pupils in one year because there are more children locally needing school places. We will publish by March each year the expected entry number for the following year.

We follow the National Curriculum at Key Stage 3, but deliver it via the United Learning core curriculum, which aims to be academically challenging and provide students with a strong foundation for GCSE study.

An educational trust with charitable status that runs more than 60 state schools across England, as well as independent schools. Locally it also runs Wye School and Ashford School. The benefit of being part of United Learning is that we get to share resources and experiences from a chain of successful schools in a way that benefits us as a small school. For example, our tests are centrally produced and moderated so we can be sure that the marks we give are accurate and comparable across England. So even though we are small and only have one music teacher, she works with the wider United Learning music team.

There has been high demand for the first year 7 at Chilmington Green School and, as such, we have received a large number of applications. Places have therefore been offered based on our oversubscription criteria, which can be found on page 2 of our Admissions Arrangements 2023/24.

Yes. We make no apology for expecting students to behave well and for expecting parents/carers to support us in that expectation. If you are of the mindset that you want a school where you can back up your child if they want to break rules or disrupt learning then you might want to consider an alternative to Chilmington Green School.

We do set homework and expect it to be done, we do set detentions and expect parents to support them. That does not mean we are not understanding and supportive, we repeatedly get told that a student who moved to us as they struggled in another school is happier and/or behaving better with us.

We offer the full range of sport and extra-curricular clubs that you would expect at a secondary school, including taking part in local sports fixtures.

We offer peripatetic music lessons and have music, art, photography, and drama departments for creative pursuits.

We have safe walking routes into our temporary home and bike storage facilities for students and staff who live locally to Jemmett Road.

We are working closely with KCC to ensure that there are safe travel routes from Ashford to Chilmington Green once our permanent site is open.

We have limited parking on site at Jemmett Road. We encourage parents/carers to drive their children to school only when they have no alternative and ask that parents/carers are considerate of our neighbours during pick up and drop off.

No. We have a SENCO and Teaching Assistants and we will deliver the support required by an EHCP. But we are a small secondary school and do not have the scale to run a specialist SEN unit or have our own dyslexia teacher or similar. The vast majority of our SEN support is delivered in class. We are inclusive and welcoming for all students whatever their need and are experienced at supporting those with physical disabilities and other special needs.

We set in English, Maths and Science. We do not use the name grammar stream as we treat each student as an individual, some are stronger in say Maths than English and so might be in different sets for each. All our sets are taught an academically challenging curriculum that prepares them for the full GCSE offering and all can take the three sciences irrespective of which set they were in during Year 7. Sets are assigned using national test results and refined using our internal United Learning tests, so, students can move between sets over time.

No. Devices have their place in supporting learning and we have an IT room, interactive whiteboards and set homework that can be done on a device. But traditional literacy and numeracy underpin a good education and the big majority of our work is done in the traditional way with a pen and book. Mobile phones are not allowed to be seen or used during the school day.

Chilmington Green School will benefit from a new school building which will be fully equipped with an excellent range of teaching facilities. This will provide a fantastic learning environment for our pupils and will create a number of opportunities to enhance and expand the curriculum. Construction is due to start in the next few months and we expect to be able to move in by the end of 2024.

Until the building is complete, we are pleased to announce Chilmington Green School will be housed at Ashford South Building on Jemmett Road, formerly home to Chilmington Green Primary School. This site will allow us to deliver our full Year 7 curriculum from our very first day and will benefit from a refurbishment programme led by Kent County Council over the coming months. As part of the work, we will have access to additional classrooms and a science lab. Our temporary home in the centre of Ashford and is well-served by local transport services.

We have a traditional head of year system with each year group having their own dedicated head of year who leads a team of tutors. Each student has their own tutor and head of year who they, and their parents/carers, can talk to if they have any issues. If issues are deeper than a general year team can deal with we have an Inclusion team who can provide one to one or small group support. We are lucky to have a small year 7 cohort in which the head of year and tutor team know their whole year group well and work as a team to ensure any issues big or small are dealt with.