|
Return
to Agenda
ITEM EX13
EXECUTIVE
– 29 APRIL 2003
SCHOOL ADMISSION
CRITERIA
Report by
Director for Learning & Culture
Introduction
- The County Council
on 14 January 2003 agreed the following motion in the name of Councillor
Liz Brighouse:
"This
Council advises the Executive that an important criterion in the allocation
of places to any school should be the child’s entitlement to attend
the school closest to their home, because that best serves the interests
of inclusion, social justice and fairness. Accordingly, this Council
requests the Executive to consider the implications of such a change
in policy and to draw up and consult on plans to implement such a policy,
but recognising within such plans that:
- technical
criteria such as the needs of those in public care, those who
have special educational needs and those with siblings already
at the school will have precedence over proximity;
- such a policy
could only be applied practically in areas where transport to
school is not a statutory entitlement, i.e. mainly in urban areas."
- This paper considers
the practical implications of implementing such a policy in order to
inform an Executive Committee decision about whether or not to proceed
with the necessary consultation.
Legal
framework for admissions
- There is a legal
obligation upon parents to ensure that their children receive an education
appropriate to their needs and likewise an obligation upon Local Education
Authorities (LEA) to ensure adequacy of school places where these educational
needs can be met. Parents are able to express a preference for
which school they wish their children to attend but there is no absolute
right to choose a place in a particular school i.e. there is no entitlement
to attend the school closest to their home nor any other particular
school (whether based upon proximity or some other criterion such as
catchment area or sibling connection.) Indeed the only guarantee of
a particular school place is where a child has a statement of Special
Educational Needs which names the particular school – in this case the
school is legally obliged to admit the pupil.
- If a school has
spare places and a parent expresses a preference for a place the relevant
admissions authority (LEA for Community and Controlled schools, the
governing body for Aided schools) is obliged to allocate a place. It
is only when places equivalent to the Published Admission Number have
been allocated that the offer of a place can be refused. In circumstances
where there are more expressed preferences than there are places available
a school is said to be ‘oversubscribed’ and admission authorities must
have in place ‘oversubscription criteria’ to decide which preferences
should be met.
- ‘Oversubscription
criteria’ must be fair and objective. Subject to these two conditions
admissions authorities have wide ranging discretion and so may, for
instance, give priority to those children living in a designated area
(a catchment area), with a sibling connection or living closest to the
school.
- However in all
cases parents expressing a preference take priority over those who do
not (the ‘Rotherham Judgement’) and preferences expressed from outside
the LEA area must be treated fairly alongside from those within the
LEA area. Places may not be reserved in anticipation of in-catchment
pupils arriving mid year nor for those known to be likely to require
a place at a school but for whom no preference for a place has yet been
received. Taken together it is therefore not possible for an admissions
authority to guarantee a place for a child at a particular school.
Current
over-subscription criteria
- For the current
admissions round the oversubscription criteria applied in Oxfordshire
are:
- Children with
a statement
- Looked after
children
- Catchment area
- Sibling
- Attached nursery/feeder
primary
- In the event of
over-subscription from within the catchment area priority is given to
those children with siblings already in the school and then to those
in either an attached nursery (for primary schools) or attending a feeder
primary (for secondary schools). In the event of over-subscription from
within a category or if (a) – (e) are exhausted "priority will be given
to those children who live closest to the school by the nearest walking
route from gate to gate."
- Catchment areas
in rural areas are principally defined in terms of parishes for primary
schools. In urban areas primary catchment areas are defined in terms
of streets or, in the case of new estates with a school built as part
of the development, co-terminus with the new development. In the case
of secondary schools the feeder primaries define the catchment area.
- Although schools
are not placed at the centre of catchment areas their location generally
reflects viable transport routes and/or safe and sustainable walking
to school routes (the necessity of crossing main roads, other than via
dedicated crossings, is avoided wherever possible). For rural primary
schools this means they are either in the village at the heart of the
parish or, where two or more villages/parishes constitute the catchment
area, generally that with the largest population. For rural secondary
schools they are located in the major population centres (e.g. Chipping
Norton, Burford, Sonning Common, Wallingford etc.)
Technical
Considerations
- The current mapping
software held by the LEA only allows distances to be measured by a ‘click
and drag’ process i.e. by using a mouse to move a cursor along an electronic
street plan, clicking at each point where direction must be changed.
Each measurement can take up to 20 minutes (depending upon the length
and complexity of the route) and where routes are of similar length
may often require re-measurement to ensure consistency. Of the oversubscribed
schools for which distance measurement was required in the 2003-2004
allocation round, the maximum number of measurements for any one school
is c.140 with a total for the whole process of c.1000. (A potential
workload of some 300+ hours). The total number of places allocated in
the current round is c.9,000 secondary places and c.6,000 primary.
- Automated measuring
systems do exist and the LEA has identified one which would be compatible
with the current admissions process. The software and licensing costs
for this are in the region of £15,000 for set up and an annual maintenance
cost of c.£2,000.
- Paradoxically
such a mapping system might, as an alternative, enable the LEA to guarantee
a place in the catchment school for all parents who request it. This
could be achieved by a more sophisticated analysis of pupil numbers
and manipulation of catchment areas to ensure that potential pupil numbers
and school capacities were more closely matched. This would be easier
for secondary school admissions as nearly every pupil would already
be ‘known’ to the system as they would already be in Oxfordshire primary
schools.
Inclusion,
Social Justice and Fairness issues
- In almost every
case parents expressing a preference for their catchment school are
successful in securing places and overall about 90% of first and second
preferences are met. Of the unsuccessful 10% the overwhelming majority
are out of catchment preferences for the most popular, oversubscribed
schools. In the main, therefore, schools serve the communities that
makes up their catchment area.
- There are, however,
some schools where the majority of their intake does not come from within
their defined catchment area. In rural areas this is possible where
the school aged population of a village or parish has declined allowing
parents with access to daily transport to bring children to school from
a wider area. In urban centres the changing age profile of estates means
that some schools become undersubscribed from within their defined catchment
area. A combination of transport and walking brings in out of catchment
children.
- The intake profile
of schools thus does not always reflect that of the schools’ defined
catchment areas. However, the defining of catchment areas does at least
allow the LEA to exercise some influence over the potential intake
of pupils in a way that a reliance on distance alone would not. For
instance secondary schools in the market towns might be felt to benefit
from a mixed intake from their core urban area along with that from
one or more villages. A reliance exclusively on distance as the criterion
for admission in the case of oversubscription might militate against
this. (It should be acknowledged that the use of distance as a tie-breaker
within an oversubscription criterion has been criticised by the Oxfordshire
Governors Association. This is because it can result in village children
not getting a place in their school of preference even when they attend
a feeder primary school &/or live in the catchment area precisely
because they are furthest from the school).
- Relying on distance
to determine admission can also disadvantage children in urban areas.
The example of Peers School this year serves to illustrate the point:
the school was oversubscribed and with a City-wide catchment area it
was necessary to refuse places to those children without siblings on
the basis of distance. A number of children living on the new Greater
Leys development (South East of the City) were furthest from the school
and thus refused places. The next nearest school with spaces was Oxford
Community School in East Oxford. This is even further from Greater Leys
than Peers and, to make matters worse, is accessed from the children’s
homes by a bus service which runs within a few hundred metres of Peers
School. In order to avoid a repetition in September 2004 a proposal
to designate Greater Leys a priority area for Peers School (akin to
the ‘Wolvercote’ clause for The Cherwell School) has been consulted
upon and received widespread support.
Future
Admissions Arrangements
- The Executive
has already determined (January 2002) that there should be a review
of Oxford City school catchment areas (informed by the pattern of parental
preference in the current admissions round) with any changes to take
effect in September 2005.
- The admission
arrangements for 2004-05 were subject to consultation this spring with
a final determination made in March. Admission arrangements for 2005-06
will be subject to a similar consultation exercise in Spring 2004. This
timetable is prescribed by the new Code of Practice on School Admissions.
RECOMMENDATION
- The Executive
is RECOMMENDED, in the light of the report, to decide whether to require
officers to formally consult in Spring 2004 on proposals to amend the
LEA’s admission arrangements in line with the proposal contained in
Councillor Brighouse’s motion at the 14 January 2003 Council meeting.
KEITH
BARTLEY
Director for
Learning & Culture
Background
papers: Code of Practice School Admissions (2003)
Contact
officer: Roy Leach, Senior Education Officer, Schools Branch, Tel
01865-815693
April
2003
Return to TOP
|