Schools able to control own admissions

[raiseaneyebrow]

There was a short piece in the paper today saying over-subscribed schools will be able to run their own lotteries, rather than the LEA doing it.

It doesn't say that this will only apply to academies.

Has anyone heard more about this? Will we end up applying to individual schools do you think, rather than centrally?

I'm certainly not saying a change in the admissions code will make no difference. I am only saying that some of the "changes" mentioned on this thread are actually not changes at all. Making the admission code less prescriptive and simpler could well have an impact but we won't know until we see what the government proposes.

prh47, it's precisely because many faith schools are already in this position that I would be worried if the changes meant more schools moving away from LEA control

when we appealed the school were (understandably) very reluctant to admit dd, and it did feel reassuring to know that they had nothing to do with the appeals panel; basically, it felt reassuring to have people there from the school and the LEA and the panel

how would you set about proving that an appeals panel provided by the school was not properly independent?

judicial review sounds like a terrible addition of stress if you are already struggling to provide for a disabled child

Proving that an appeal panel is not properly independent is difficult but it can be done. I would be suspicious if, for example, someone had served on the appeal panel for a particular school for more than three years. Lack of questioning of the case to refuse admission would also be a possible marker. In more extreme cases it has been known for panel members to answer questions for the authority or make comments which make it clear they have prejudged the case or that their training was inadequate.

In your situation the school may have had nothing to do with the appeals panel but the LA did. The LA were responsible for selecting the panel members and training them. If the school was not a faith school the LA would have controlled admissions and appointed the appeals panel. The LA should also have presented the case not to admit your daughter. So there is just as much scope for problems. Indeed, I have come across LA-appointed panels that failed to act independently.

I agree that judicial review would be stressful. It is a backstop. As far as I am aware no LA has yet refused to implement the LGO's recommendation in an admissions case. Some schools have refused but that is extremely rare. Where judicial reviews have happened it has generally been because the parents opted to go down that route instead of referring to the LGO.

I should also have said that in your situation it should have been the LA's decision not to admit in the first place as, from what you say, the LA was the admission authority.

And just for clarity, my first brush with the admissions system was over getting my youngest into the local primary school. The school were quite happy to take him but the LA, as the admission authority, refused entry. Two appeal panels appointed by the LA accepted that it was an infant class size case despite the fact that, within the rules, it clearly was not. There was (and probably still is) clearly something seriously wrong with the training my LA deliver to appeal panels.

I would prefer a situation where the school is its own admission authority but gets the LA to train and appoint appeal panels (which, I believe, is what happens at most faith schools). That way the appeal panel is clearly independent from the admission authority.

At the moment, if he finds that a school or LA has breached the code the adjudicator tells them exactly how to modify their admission arrangements in order to comply. In future it will be up to the admission authority to sort out how to comply.
But if the LA has no admissions forum or it's weak and the school determines it's own admissions - how does this work ?

I don't want schools to be free of LA control and answerable only to parents - not sure how I gave that impression .

If the school is a faith school, academy, free school or foundation school it is its own admission authority. So it will be up to them to determine how to change their arrangements in order to comply, rather than the adjudicator dictating the required changes. The point, as I understand it, is that there are often several ways admission arrangements can be changed to comply. Right now the adjudicator gets to choose which option must be taken. In future it will be up to the admission authority, which is either the school or the LA.

I didn't say you want schools to be free of LA control and answerable to parents. That, however, is the government's agenda. They believe, rightly or wrongly, that this will help to improve the standard of education. There is some evidence to support their view from other countries but that is no guarantee it will work the same way here. It is part of a wider agenda of devolving power to the lowest level possible. Of course, governments of all colours tend to come to power with that ambition but lose it after a few years in office. It remains to be seen whether this government will be any different.

I would not get too carried away with all these newspaper reports, it is the usual situation of the government testing a few of the wilder ideas in the press to see how they go down.
The new admission code was supposed to be out in February but everything is behind. Depending on who you talk to it is out within the next month or it will not be out till the summer. As the aim is for it to be no more than 15 pages i suspect it will not help at all to clarify matters but will actually cause more problems because it is so vague and open to different interpretations.

For those who don't know, the code is currently 97 pages including the index. Ignoring the index, glossary, introduction by Ed Balls and the section on the statutory basis for the code, the important stuff is 74 pages.

If it is cut down to 15 pages I agree it is likely to cause problems. It could be shortened by not covering the stuff which is in the relevant legislation but I think it is helpful to have all the relevant law in one place, so I would be against that personally.

I think the code could be shortened to a degree. There is some repetition and it often seems to use far more words than necessary. They could also use a smaller font and have less white space!

(Actually that last point isn't entirely facetious. Having the whole thing in 12 point seems unnecessarily large to me. Reducing it to 10 point should reduce the size of the important stuff to around 60 pages.)

I am not going to make any judgements until I see the proposed new code. If it is vague or fails to cover all the areas covered by the existing code adequately I will certainly register an objection.

I suspect the actual outcome will be a slightly shorter code but substantially more than 15 pages.

Why not reduce the font to 8 or 6 or even 2 that would reduce its length.

The shorter the code, whatever the font size, the less prescriptive it will be and the more scope school's will have to interpret it as they see fit. That combined with a weaker OSA - and the fact that all the new academies are not accountable to the OSA for admissions may throw the whole issue of school's admission open.

From a readability point of view I wouldn't go below 8 point.

The new academies are in the same position as the old academies. The adjudicator can investigate the admission arrangements of any school including academies. For maintained schools the adjudicator specifies modifications to the admission arrangements to ensure compliance and, if the admission authority refuses to comply, asks the Secretary of State to direct them to comply. With academies the adjudicator recommends the required modifications to the Secretary of State who makes the final decision.

As I say, we are all guessing on the new admissions code at the moment. I am not going to pass any kind of judgement on it until I see it. I agree with the current head of the OSA that the code could be made more understandable. I would not want to see the code weakened.