How to create a bulge class in RC school

[krisskross]

I live in suburban London and like many nearby did not get a place at a local school. Many on our road and nearby roads did not get any school place at all- been told to wait it out bascially.

Our borough is apparently expecially ill prepared for the no of reception places needed and our part of the borough is well known by residents and the council alike as a 'black hole' for schools. There is a strong local campaign for the local community school to take a bulge class this year which looks likely. However, the local RC school (which we applied to - missed out on distance) is not really under pressure to take one- I think because no one seems to know how this works.

It seems that the diocese have said the LA would need to approach them and the LA say the diocese would need to approach them. In the meantime, everyone is saying different things and no one knows if the RC school has officially done a feasability study etc. The local prob is actually worse than it appears because the RC school measure their catchment from the church, which is approx 0.7 miles away from the school. And we are no 46 on waiting list for community school which is 0.4 miles away!

Can anyone advise me on how to get concrete info on whether a bulge class has genuinley been investigated at the RC school? I get the impression someone glanced at the playground and said theres no room.

Thanks!

bump...thanks

Hi

The best way of getting this information is to make a freedom of Information request to your local authority. The LA will be the ones to do the work to establish feasability, traffics studies etc and will liase with the diocese.

You need to be very careful about how your work the FOI questions, lots of very tightly worked questions are better than one big one.

9asie

thanks for this.
does anyone have any suggestions on how we could put pressure on them to look into it for sept 2012??

This is not just my own preference but a recognised fact that there are not enough local school places- as i said this is made worse because the local RC places are not in fact for local children, as catchement measured from church.

Two local RC schools have increased intake for 2012 (one increased pan and one bulge class). They said the LA "asked" them to consider it.

It has to be a decision taken by the LA, the Diocese and the school together. The fact that they are all appear to be prevaricating possibly says that one or more party has said no and the others are being too nice about not blaming them!
In theory under paragraph 3.38 of the 2010 admission code the local authority may direct the governing body of a faith school to admit a child where there is no appropriate space available in other local schools. So presumably they could do that 30 times but it would completely be at odds to how things should be done, which is by co-operation.

I am intrigued by the comment krisskross about catchment being measured from the church. That seems to be totally wrong if that is what the admission criteria says, it should be from the school and begs a referral to the school adjudicator. If you would PM me the school and LA I would be interested in looking exactly what it says on the admission criteria.

Thanks everyone, admission i have PM'd you the schools admissions code, can I ask, are you saying they should not be allowed to measure their catchement from the church??? Thanks again.

It is certainly a situation I have never come across before. I would say that a measurement from the school is fair on all, a measurement from a building 0.7 miles from the school is clearly being unfair on others, especially those that live near the school. The only person who can give a legal opinion that matters however is the school adjudicator.