GOVERNORS of one of Kent’s largest non-selective secondary schools are to try to re-impose an admissions policy giving less priority to applications from those children who take the 11-plus.

Tenterden’s Homewood School is seeking to re-introduce the policy next year even though it was told it must end by the Schools Adjudicator last year.

Governors believe it is the only way to safeguard the interests of those parents who genuinely want a place at the school.

The move threatens to re-ignite the row over the controversial policy, known as conditionality, which Homewood and fifteen other secondary schools had in place last year.

Kent County Council is certain to resist the move and refer the matter to the adjudicator, the independent quango that has been forced to rule on admissions in Kent for the last three years.

It could mean another year of protracted wrangling and delays for parents until the matter is settled.

Governors at Homewood believe Kent County Council is failing to discourage “mind changing” among parents who receive an offer of a place at their school as their first choice but then relinquish it because their child passed the 11-plus and opt for a lower-ranked grammar school.

The school believes KCC has acted against the instructions of education secretary Charles Clarke by advising parents they if they choose to appeal, they are likely to get a grammar school place.

Mr Clarke told KCC its admissions arrangements should not allow parents to seek a place at a school they ranked lower on their list - if they had been offered their first choice.

The move was designed to prevent a situation in which parents were able to get two “first choices” by opting for a place at a popular high school and a grammar.

County education chiefs believe they have acted correctly because the legislation on appeals makes clear that where there are surplus places at schools, those appeals should be upheld.

Martin Frey, vice chairman of governors, said: “The impossibility of mind-changing in Clarke’s scheme was the main reason why the Schools Adjudicator said conditionality should end. But that argument has proved to be groundless.”