Kent County Council tried to change the admissions arrangements of a Maidstone secondary school it says is partly to blame for leaving dozens of pupils without places.

Cornwallis Academy says it was forced to make the changes by Kent County Council and would have preferred to have left things as they were.

The school spoke out after county council leader Paul Carter said the changes to Cornwallis’ admissions criteria had an “enormous knock-on effect in the surrounding area.”

More than 80 children from Roseacre, Madginford, Sandling and Hollingbourne primary schools failed to be offered a place at any of the four schools they had applied for. Many included Cornwallis among their options but failed to secure a place there.

Head teacher David Simons said the only reason the school changed its arrangements for pupils who wanted places this year was because KCC had advised it to.

He said: “Cornwallis School was advised by the local authority [KCC] in 2007 that its admission policy was considered to be illegal.

The school, and later the Academy, worked with the authority to ensure compliance with new legislation. Prior to this neither the school nor the Academy had any plans to change its admissions policy.

“We are obviously concerned at the outcome for some parents in Maidstone, but would like to point out that this was not of our making”.

County council leader Paul Carter said KCC had to act because as the education authority, it was legally obliged to enforce the government’s code of conduct on admissions.

“I think it is a little unfair of Cornwallis. The code of conduct on admissions changed and we told the school it needed to operate within the law. We have a duty to ensure schools do so. This is the government’s doing; it changed the code so Cornwallis was unable to stick to its historic catchment area.”

Asked if KCC could have done more to alert parents about the possible impact the changes might have had, he said: “It is sometimes difficult to predict the law of unintended consequences.”

County education chiefs challenged Cornwallis because they believed its choice of feeder primary schools could disadvantage children from poorer areas - something not permitted under the code.