What are the implications of this adjudication on the admissions arrangements for St Richard Reynolds Catholic College

[whatwouldrondo]

Is this ruling as potentially significant as it appears? www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/565091/ADA3114_St_Richard_Reynolds_Catholic_College_Richmond_upon_Thames.pdf

Background below but this appears to be the outcome -

Firstly this is an instance where the Catholic Church has had to concede on it's principle that priority in allocating places in state Catholic Schools should always be given to Catholic children, even over and above non Catholic looked after children, in the event of oversubscription. This is the principle that has led to the government proposal to do away with the requirement for a maximum of 50% of places in new Free Schools to be allocated on the basis of faith related criteria to enable the Catholic Church to open new schools. If they can concede 10 inclusive places in an existing state Catholic Primary / Senior School why not in new state funded schools.

Secondly that if the Certificate of Catholic Practise used to determine whether a child is from a practising Catholic family is not compliant with the code does it leaves schools open to appeals from parents who have not gained places because they were not granted one by their priest? How far would this apply, even to parents who did not in any way meet any definition of practising Catholic, or just those who perhaps for one reason or another did not satisfy the whims judgement of a Priest?

Thirdly coming at this point in the admissions round, after the deadline for applications, how is this not going to result in chaos?

Background (sorry if this is longwinded)

The admissions arrangements for St Richard Reynolds Catholic College (which comprises a Primary and Senior School) were referred to the Schools Adjudicator on two grounds

• that the arrangements do not define what form or frequency of religious practice is required for a priest to issue a Certificate of Catholic Practise (CCP) and that parents cannot look at the arrangements and easily understand how the faith-based oversubscription criterion may be reasonably satisfied, which is a requirement of paragraph 1.37 of the Code.

*that the parents of children who had taken up, or were considering taking up, one of the 10 places in the Primary School where the oversubscription criteria are distance rather than faith related, had been promised that those children would be given “top priority” from September 2019 for admission to the senior school but that it was not clear from this statement whether priority over Catholic or over non-Catholic children is referred to and that it is therefore potentially misleading to parents with children in this category at the primary school or considering making an application for such a place, the arrangements fail to be clear, and breach paragraph 14 of the Code.

It finds that both objections were valid along with raising a number of other issues.

The Schools website now makes clear that the priority given to pupils who have open places in the Primary School will get priority over Catholic children in the admissions process. This is significant in itself as highlighted above

The adjudication was issued on 2 November, the deadline for applications for the secondary School was 31 October.

The CCP issue is not one that would apply only to the admissions arrangements for St Richard Reynolds, it applies at a number of other Catholic Schools, hence the Catholic Education Service was present at the adjudication to present the arguments.

To make that a bit clearer ... I thought I read there was a random allocation system for the secondary, in which case getting one of those open places [at the primary] is the only way to guarantee a place at the secondary. In which case Catholics living next door to the school are better off getting an open place [in the primary] than an RC place [in the primary] if they want to go the secondary.

Complicated stuff!

I thought I read there was a random allocation system for the secondary

It is not a random allocation system. They have a reasonably normal set of admission criteria with distance as the tie breaker. They only use random allocation if they have two or more applicants in the same category who are the same distance from the school. That should be a pretty rare occurrence.

Prh47bridge the bit I meant is in the additional criteria for the high school ...

"Where the number of applicants under subcategories 2a or 2b exceeds the number of places available, places will be allocated in the ratio Diocese of Westminster: Diocese of Southwark = 6:4. Applicants within each diocese within each of the two subcategories separately, will be ranked by random allocation."

So it's not a normal distance criteria.

No I meant that I understand that the admissions arrangements will be changed to give Catholic children from the Primary priority over Catholic children who get in on random allocation in 2019. It is not such a big deal in terms of the impact because most if not all would get a place on random allocation -they are not even all local as the RC places have not been oversubscribed, there are established schools nearby, some of which were barely or even not oversubscribed even before the school opened. Some Catholic parents in the area can have a realistic chance of a place at three Catholic primary schools.

It is in any case it is only a one form entry Primary with 30 pupils and there are 150 places in the senior school, the ten have only ever been likely to be an issue because of the principle.

That's not what I heard whatwouldrondo. I have heard of at least one person who applied under category 2a in 2016 and didn't get in so it must have been oversubscribed in that category. They live in the Strawberry Hill area so quite close and were at their local RC primary which must be the next nearest after the school's own primary.

the bit I meant is in the additional criteria for the high school

You are right. I missed that. Sorry.

The published statistics say that 148 places went under category 2, the remaining places going to children with statements or EHCPs. It does, however, say that they didn't use random allocation in category 2 which implies everyone who qualified under 2a or 2b got a place. Either the statistics they have provided Richmond Council are wrong (which is quite possible) or the school decided the person you mention did not qualify under category 2a.

banana I did say most! I had heard some Catholic children did not initially get offers in the last two years but that it all worked out through the waiting list, the trial of nerves so many parents in LBRUT go through, I speak from experience, (and often give up on).

That's a bit weird prh. I will have to check my information, which was about a friend of a friend. Maybe it was that they didn't get a place on offer day, but then got one later, so although they did use random allocation at first, eventually everyone in those categories did get in, so they reported it as not random allocation, if that makes sense.

prh47bridge What are the implications for the current admissions round? What would be the limits in your judgement for the grounds of appeal? I assume somebody who attended their Catholic Church, at least on occasion, and baptised their child but had been denied a CCP by the Priest would now have grounds for appeal (this has certainly happened locally in relation to the references for Primary Schools though obviously what we don't know is what guidance priests had for this new document, the CCP, and whether it could still happen). But what about parents who applied without a CCP because they did not even apply for one because they assumed they would not get one? There is some disparity anyway between the admissions criteria for other local Catholic primary schools which explicitly require baptism by six months and St RR which I gather has been more flexible on the issue so that families who would not meet the oversubscription criteria for those Primary Schools have been getting a Priest's reference for St RR's Senior School, that alone must lead to some parents assuming they would not get in when they actually might have done.

We are in a situation where there are likely to be families without places in any local state schools in the borough on allocation day, there were last year , and demand is intensifying. It is likely therefore parents are going to be quite trigger happy on making appeals?

Doesn't the answer to that kind of depend on what the school changes their policy to whatwouldrondo? If the CES do what Prh47bridge predicts and publishes some black-and-white rules about when the CCP should be issued and when it shouldn't be issued, and that gets added to the 2017 policy at this late stage then there will probably be lots of (successful) appeals as you say. On the other hand if they ditch the CCP criterion altogether and just use the baptism certificate then there won't be. Everyone who went to the trouble of getting a now-useless CCP might decide to appeal of course, but they would probably all lose their cases.

The CES are very quiet about it all. Probably busy lobbying Theresa May to sack the adjudicator .

Banana Can they just unilaterally level the playing field downwards, and in so doing deprive people who would/ might have got a place with a CCP under the criteria in place when they applied, but subsequently lost out in the ballot to families who wouldn't? Even if they could get away with it in terms of the admissions process they are going to have revolt in the Parishes surely?

I suppose one option would be to publish any clear and consistent criteria that had been set for the CCP behind the scenes, if there was wording in there that enabled priests to use their judgement in exceptional circumstances they can put criteria around that surely? They could then invite parents who had not already applied for the CCP but met the criteria to apply? No idea if that is legal but it seems to achieve some fairness and transparency.

As you say I am sure the CES are beavering away at finding a solution, or their application for Judicial Review. It would be nice if their priority was to achieve fairness and transparency.....

Agree with bananasplat that what will work in appeals depends on what the school does. Whatever they do there is scope for parents to complain that the admission arrangements have changed after they applied thereby affecting their chances of getting a place. Parents who did not get a CCP then find they should have got one have grounds for appeal. Parents who didn't bother trying to get a CCP because they thought they wouldn't get one may have grounds for appeal. I don't envy the appeal panel that has to sort out this mess.

This story has now made Schools Week ... schoolsweek.co.uk/school-admissions-watchdog-rejects-catholic-certificate/

One of the 5 schools that was the subject of the ruling against the Certificate of Catholic Practice has now published on its website that there will be a legal challenge and that families should carry on using the CCP in their applications ... www.ourlady.surrey.sch.uk/index.phtml?d=1499068

From the response of the Catholic Education Service it seems that they are determined to defend the right of priests to be the sole arbiters of which families are or are not "practising Catholics", whatever the potential for at best inconsistency, at worst downright unfairness. No doubt this is seen as the secular interfering with the religious, or even what I have heard termed "illiberal liberalism" dictating religious matters. It will be very interesting indeed to see what form the challenge takes, if it is a judicial review I would have thought it would be hard to assert given the legal framework. However if the challenge will involve leveraging power over the government I wonder if the principle of fairness and consistency in admissions will be defended