Dartford Grammar School
Boys grammar school in Dartford.
| Places in Year 7 | 180 |
| How places are allocated | By score |
| Own entrance test | No |
| Feesstate-funded, like every grammar school | None |
What score is needed?
Dartford Grammar School does not publish its cutoff scores, and neither does the local authority. Figures circulating on forums are unsourced, so we do not repeat them. What we can say is that at a school ranking by score, the bar sits well above the qualifying threshold of 332.
How hard is it to get a place?
In 2026, 569 families put Dartford Grammar School first, and 149 of them were offered a place there (26%).
That includes children who did not reach the qualifying score, so it reflects the test and the allocation together, not the allocation alone.
| Year | Places offered | Put it first | Offered a placeof those |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 178 | 617 | 13422% |
| 2025 | 177 | 510 | 13927% |
| 2026 | 179 | 569 | 14926% |
26% of the places offered in 2026 went to families living outside its local council area.
Source: Department for Education, applications and offers. Figures are for National Offer Day in March; places filled later from waiting lists are not included.
How you get a place
Places are ranked by test score. Living nearby does not help - distance is only used to break ties between equal scores. The score needed for an offer runs well above the county qualifying threshold.
- 130 places go to boys scoring at least 40 points above the county threshold. A further 50 are ranked by score.
- Distance is only used as a tie-break, so living nearby does not help you get in.
Does it run its own test?
No. Entry is through the Kent Test only. Its reputation for being hard to get into comes from ranking those scores, not from setting an additional paper.
Does it charge fees?
Dartford Grammar School is a state grammar school, so there are no fees. Selective does not mean private. Admission is decided by the Kent Test and the school’s published criteria, never by what a family can pay.
Work out where a score lands
The Kent Test calculator turns marks into a standardised score you can compare against the figures above.
Other schools to look at
Same region, so the same test gets you into all of them. Which of these is a realistic alternative depends far more on how each one allocates places than on its reputation.
Source
Built from published admissions documents for 2027/28: admissions arrangements. Check the school’s own site before applying — arrangements change annually and deadlines are unforgiving.