Article on Toby Young's west london free school - I don't understand admissions

[PollyParanoia]

Ok article is here from yesterday's standard.
I do find all this stuff about "we want a school with high standards" a bit strange - is there anyone head or parent who actively wants a crap one?
But my main question is one of admissions. It says that the site is 3 miles from Toby Young's house. Presumably that would mean that his four children wouldn't get in if it's done on catchment. Is this the case? If true, it seems strangely admirable and altruistic of him to be doing all this hard work. I suppose I should be applauding his philanthropy rather than assuming he wants an education he can't afford to pay for...

Yes, I would PRH, though I have to do something meaningful in my working life which doesn't pay me enough to set up a school for my own children in my free time and write inane blogs. Like thousands of people around the country though, I am a parent governor but haven't given up hours of my own time over the years to secure advantage for my children.

Young repeatedly said that he didn't intend to apply to change the Admissions Code. This clearly wasn't true.

By the way, Toby Young (and other free schoolers with the same clause in their Funding Agreement) can also, ahem, consult with the Secretary of State's permission about other changes to the Admissions code like interviewing for places etc.

Yes, Rosebud, I don't think people like you or I doubted for a moment the FS agenda was announced that this'd be anything other than a way to allow MC, highly-likely-to-be Tory voting parents to get a selective private education for their own DC for free which everyone else will have to pay for, both via our taxes and by the denuding of our DCs schools of the clever, committed MC DC and their 'kick-butt, 'standards raising'' parents.

And the next thing we will see it the wide eyed outrage that anyone could be as churlish and mean-spirited to interfere with that sacrosanct notion, a child's education when and if anyone dares to challenge TY and the mission-creep/ rewriting of his FS's admissions policy as HOW could anyone be as CRUEL as to deny a DC such an OUTSTANDING education, regardless of the duplicity that went into getting that DC into that school (depriving another DC of that place into the bargain, but heigh ho!).

As an aside, you see that on MN now and then: fee paying parents fall upon hard times and discover they may have to remove Bruno and Jocasta from St Grabbitts as they can't afford the fees. They are outraged (and often joined by a Greek chorus of same on here) that anyone could be as heartless to disrupt those poor childrens education, forcing them back into the state sector. It's considered tantamount to child abuse.

And, finally, the outrage that sometimes (but a lot less often, tbh), greets the discovery that a DC has been asked to leave their hard fought for school when their parents fraud has been discovered in getting them a place.

Does anyone know of children at the Free School at the moment. How is it going?? Any feedback would be appreciated

I don't get the problem with founders' children being admitted. The founders have invested huge amounts of time and energy into this. Their work has resulted in the creation of a school that parents are fighting to get their children into. It looks like an excellent school, it's hugely oversubscribed, and it's a result of the founders' efforts. Why shouldn't they send their children there. I sometimes feel that in this country there's a prevailing meanness. It's not so much the fact that the founders' children will be further up the admissions list than other people's children, thus denying them a place, but the fact that if the founders had sat idly by, many more "other people's children" would also have been denied places as the school wouldn't have existed.

The school would not have existed without a lot of public funding which is now being put at the disposal of a group of parents who being "founders" have special access to membership of the Governing Body and now, it seems special rights for their children as "founders kin".

At least when "founders kin" privileges were part of some Oxford colleges the founders in question had used their own money to endow the college in the first place.

I think in addition to what Nlondondad has said, it's important that admissions processes are transparent and verifiable. Distance from school gates, for example, is. Commitment to a faith is not. But even less than that, is what constitutes a parent who has had an involvement in setting up the school. How many committee meetings do you have to go to? If there is a founders' list, who decides who goes on there? Are there a set number of hours that constitute a reasonable number to be able to claim that you've done enough? It's all too wooly I think, when clear admissions are a very important principle to uphold.

Which is why commitment to a faith cannot be used as an oversubscription criteria. Schools have to use something like church attendance as a proxy.

According to WLFS the total number of children involved is 9 and they are not all in the same year.

Really prh, I thought they did it all the time eg the Oratory which asks as part of its oversubscription criteria:
Service in any Catholic Parish or in the wider Church by both the candidate and a Catholic parent. Please enter below any details of service by the Candidate and Applicant in any Catholic parish or in the wider Catholic church within the last five years.
[off topic I know, but all part of muddied admissions]

That is still objective. Either the parent has given service to the church or they have not. That is permitted. What they can't do is make subjective judgements of the level of commitment to the faith.

Our local faith school has a points system.

Up to 5 points if you have attended for five years (child)
Up to 5 points if you have attended for five years (parent)
Up to 5 points for frequency of attendance, e.g. weekly = 5 (child)
Up to 5 points for frequency of attendance, e.g. weekly = 5 (parent)
2 points for being on a roster or in a group e.g. welcome team, choir (child)
4 points for being on a roster or in a group e.g. welcome team, choir (parent)
1 point for being C of E

You may not agree with it, and many do not think it measures faith accurately, but it is objective.

It throws up anomalies. e.g running Sunday school every week is one point. Doing Sunday school one week, flowers the next, coffee the next, welcome the fourth is four. But neither is actually doing more or less than the other. It also catches out children who attend church with their grandparents not their parents.

Re WLFS, when DH and I read the sudden addition to the original admissions code we looked at each other and exclaimed: Animal Farm!

wimini, there are 3 points here. Firstly, that TY repeatedly said that he didn't intend to alter the Admissions Criteria and that was obviously untrue. Lying is not a pleasant personality trait nor a desirable one in the 'founder' of a school.

Secondly, that the WLFS could choose to be part of H&F Fair Admissions Protocol (I might have got this name wrong, but it's basically the central procedure by which applicants are given places). Why wouldn't they do that if they are genuinely intending to give local children a good school?

Thirdly, thousands of people around the country devote years of time voluntarily into schools in the role of governors. Being committed in time and energy to developing and running a school isn't new - your own children receiving benefit from the public money you're playing around with is.

Rosebud05 - To take your points in order...

1. Could you point me to articles/interviews where Toby Young has said that? I can't find any but I've only looked briefly. He certainly said the school would comply with the Admissions Code as, indeed, they have.

1. I think you mean the Fair Access Protocol. WLFS does indeed participate in H&F's co-ordinated admissions arrangements and their Fair Access Protocol. Actually they have no choice in this. Like any free school it is required to do so by its funding agreement.

1. The governors of a community school include parents (whose children therefore receive benefit from the public money they are "playing around with" to use your phrase, although they do not receive any priority for admissions) and staff (who personally receive benefit from the public money and who may get priority for admissions for their children under some circumstances, so again their children may receive benefit...).

1. He tweeted it lots. He is applying to amendments to the Admissions Code. That's making up your own rules to apply to, is it not?

1. I thought they controlled their own Admissions?

1. I don't understand your last point at all.

1. I am not aware of him proposing changes to the Admissions Code (as opposed to the school's own admission arrangements) but it is, of course, open to anyone to do so. Any LA or school is free to change its admission criteria annually. Many do.

1. Like any Academy they are their own admission authority. That means they set their own admission criteria and are responsible for ranking children against those criteria. However, they must take part in the LA's co-ordinated admissions arrangements after their first year of operation, so you apply to the LA if you want a place. And they must also take part in the LA's Fair Access Protocol. This is all mandated by the funding agreement.

1. I am pointing out that it is not new for the children of governors to benefit from the public money the governors control.

1. My incorrect terminology. He's consulting to alter the admission arrangement s to his school to benefit his own children.

1. Ditto.

1. I still don't understand your point. The children of school governors do not enjoy special privileged, connected to admission or otherwise, that other children don't. You seem to be saying that children benefit from being at school. On the whole, I would agree with this.

privileges, I meant.

I'm a governor at a school other than the one my children attend. How do you suppose they benefit from any influence governors at my school have over public money?

Let me try again. Staff governors may under certain circumstances get priority for admission for their children.

And I don't understand your ditto for 2. He is NOT attempting to take WLFS out of the co-ordinated admission arrangements or the Fair Access Protocol. He would not be allowed to do so. I'm not convinced he will actually be allowed to give priority to the children of founders (who will, of course, have had to put in a lot more work than governors at a community school).

You've already pointed out that Toby Young isn't a member of staff. There is no comparison between him and a staff governor.

There is more comparison between him and a parent governor, the latter of which are not able to consult on priority admission for the children.

One of our school's governors has been on the governing body for 30 years. She has, without a doubt, put in many more hours than TY.

I used to be the Chair of Governors at my DCs junior school and far from gaining privileges, my children missed out for fear of being seen as a CofG perk!

I'm not a believer of free schools so maybe I'm biased, but from the Toby Young articles I've read, he insisted his children would stand as much chance of a place at this school as any other Tom, Derk or Cressida. The aim supposedly was to make this school available for its community. So why then only allocate 45% after the first two criterias, (if i recall correctly) of local children places? The adjustments were always going to cube made to the admissions policy in year two because they could be sneaked in without too much of a fuss. This is just my dear old opinion and a complete assumption based on absolutely nothing other than what I have read in various articles.

Moan over. Feel much better now!

The first three categories (looked after children, musical aptitude and siblings) will take at least 10% of any places. 50% of the remaining places are allocated on the basis of distance from the school. Two thirds of the places left after that are allocated to children living within 3 miles of the school using a lottery. So if the first 3 categories only take 10% roughly 82% of all places will be allocated to children living within 3 miles of the school. The 45% figure is the number of places allocated using distance as the tie breaker (assuming that only 10% of places are allocated under the first 3 categories).

The first three categories (looked after children, musical aptitude and siblings) will take at least 10% of any places

I don't think so. Musical aptitude places are supposed to be already 10% alone. Aren't they?

I think you have misread the section you cut and pasted!

That's why they take at least 10% of the places. If there are no siblings and no looked after children they will take exactly 10% of the places. If there are any siblings or looked after children they will take more.

However, I got my maths wrong (brain not in gear!). 83% of the places remaining after the first 3 categories will go to children living within 3 miles of the school.