Walking,
So a school is, say, 8 form entry - 240 pupils a year.
It has, say, a roughly circular priority admissions area, co-ordinated with other local comprehensives.
It has, say, a completely standard set of admission criteria:
- SEN with a statement
- LAC or ex LAC
- Siblings in catchment
- Siblings out of catchment
- Others in catchment
- Others out of catchment
It fills its places exactly according to its admissions criteria, with no regard to income, faith or ability, and both the school and the LA as admissions authority are rigorous in addressing admissions fraud.
However, its places are filled by those genuinely living relatively close to the school, and so its effective admissions area is small.
Can you explain
a) why such a school is not comprehensive?
b) how it can be said to be selective?
c) what else it should do to adjust its intake?
IF the school has an unusually-shaped admissions area which obviously omits areas of relative deprivation, campaign to get that changed - I and others successfully campaigned when a local school tried to introduce an unusual wiggle in its new catchment boundary, which tried to skirt an area of high deprivation, and the Schools Adjudicator will be interested. However, if the school has a circular catchment that happens to be reasonably affluent, then that is simply the nature of the area.
Would you suggest giving priority to PP children? I have wondered whether every school - selective and non-selective - should always admit the average level of PP children from the wider area, though of course that creates transport problems.
Do you think it is acceptable that the vast majority of grammars have such low levels of SEN and disadvantaged pupils that even the leafiest of leafy comps look full of such pupils by comparison? the comparison is even starker when you look at grammars vs secondary moderns serving the same towns.