Does a'looked after' child always legally get to the top of the admission criteria for primary school?

[Hellokittycat]

I understood that they did.
Have seen a faith schools admission policy that puts looked after children of faith, all other children of faith, non faith looked after children and then non faith other children as the order
Just wondering if this sits in with the legal requirements... Does anyone know?

In answer to prh47bridge.

LAC have a lot stacked against them. I wouldn't care if it only affects one child. LAC may not have a pushy advocate or had many house moves (not including the trauma of being in care as well). It should be about sending the right message. That message is 'you've had a tough start, let's see if we can do something to ensure the best outcome for you'.

The rules should be made to change and I would also in grammar schools make LAC a priority if their primary teacher or an ed psych recommends them regardless of 11+ scores.

2468Motorway

100% agree with your post. In my county the few grammar schools left do give priority to LAC kids.

Giving LAC carte blanche choice of mainstream state school is essential.

Tiggy, you asked kew about why children are left without places after the free school had to delay opening. My understanding (I also live locally) is that parents were told the school would not open several days AFTER school places had been offered. So many had already turned down their other school place.

I don't know, Tiggy. I guess it depends on whether places had been reoffered - do you know, kew?

Kewcumber - I am aware of the Richmond case. I was keeping it simple. I very much doubt we are going to see a rush of new VA schools opening across the country. It requires the co-operation of the LA and most will not do it. And, for the sake of accuracy, the school can give priority to Catholic applicants but it cannot exclude non-Catholics. If there are fewer Catholic applicants than places they must admit non-Catholics. Of course, it may be that there will always be more Catholic applicants than places but, given that they only prioritise baptised Catholic children, there is a reasonable chance that this won't be the case.

Whilst there are exceptions such as the one you highlight I stand by my comment that the vast majority of VA schools use land and buildings belonging to the church.

"Richmond Council said all families who applied to the council have received another secondary school place.

But one parent said her daughter was left with her fourth choice of school, forcing her to get two buses to get there each day.

A council spokesman said: “We recognise that for the many families that backed the school, this will be a disappointment. The council is very keen to offer whatever help it can to assist the school, so it can open in 2015.”

Pretty much the 150 places that had been offered were offered whatever was left over after everyone in the whole borough accepted their offers.

The coucil has been widely criticised for allowing Turing House to make offers without a permanent site available but frankly having shouted very loudly that it was essential that the catholic school had the only credible site available they had painted themselves into a corner.

The truth is that the catholic school didn;t free up as many spaces as teh council were claiming it would as many catholic children went to secondary catholics out of the borough (bearing in mind this is a very small london borough that generally wasn;t too far away!).

The conservatives have lost a LOT of votes on this matter in a marginal seat... added to which the head of the conservatives sits on a catholic charity which wasn't initially declared when the "negotiations" for the property were announced.

Its all very unsavory in my opinion - religious education of a minority has trumped the rights of the majority of children in this borough to go to a decent fairly local secondary school.

I know thats rather off topic but theres a lot more bitterness about this locally than the tory party realise.

I can only case my opinions on what I know.

Perhaps the religious education in other parts of country is fair, I judge by what I've seen and it doesn't look good to me.

prh perhaps you also know then that the big issue with applying to said catholic school is that its already been stated that whilst you might get your non-catholic child into the school in the early years when its undersubscribed (there were even as you know cases of people being offer SRR when they hadn;t applied and aren't catholic!) that in future the criteria will continue to be catholics first everyone else second - even siblings. So if you oldest child is forced to go because of a lack of alternatives in 2/3/4 years you could be refused a place for a sibling on the basis that they aren;t catholic.

Sorry but the whole think is nonsense in my very humble opinion.

All new schools now have to be free schools, which are limited to max 50% prioritisation by faith criteria (though of course in practice other criteria such as distance or parental preference may make a school near 100% of one faith).

Independent schools may apply to convert to free schools (ie to gone into the state sector) but are also bound by these rules re max 50%. Existing VA / VC schools can also apply to become academies, and they are currently allowed tk convert "as is" wrt admissions criteria. (Designated schools are also allowed to discriminate in the appointment of staff of their faith within certain parameters).

But they should all, IMHO, give LAC priority in their admissions for all the very good reasons set out above.

our new catholic school got around this 50% by claiming (with the councils support) that it only applied to schools who had chosen to set up, as it was apparently "necessary" to hav a catholic school they didn't have to comply.

Very odd.

"Interviews are not allowed for state schools. For 6th form places they can be used to discuss the subject options and requirements but must not inform the decision making process. That isn't an LAC issue - if any school are cherry picking pupils via interview they are in gross breach of the law."

Indeed, tiggy- but as I work exclusively with LAC, I need to challenge breaches of the law when they affect the LAC children I work with. This school has been mentioned a few times on MN for other breaches of the law, and I am still agog that they have not been reigned in.

"The foster family is unlikely to want 2 or 3 children all in different schools by choice and therefore may not actively apply to faith schools or more distant schools that their other children cannot attend even if this is an option."

The choice of school is not the Foster Carer's to make, as they are not the corporate parent- the SW or Virtual Head is ultimately responsible for the choice of school (the parent will share this if the child is accommodated under Section 20 and they retain shared PR). Unfortunately, many SWs are not knowledgeable enough about schools to challenge a Foster Carer's preference, and make decisions in fear of disrupting the placement. As I stated earlier, LAs are under considerable pressure to ensure that LAC are placed in good or outstanding schools; unfortunately, this does not always filter down to SWs. With the Virtual Head role now mandatory, this should hopefully change.

Fair point, tiggy- that particular school is a law unto itself. It was perhaps not the best example to use to illustrate my feelings about faith schools' approaches to LAC. Put simply, I feel that LAC should have the highest priority in all schools.

"However, in practice it would often be seen as potentially more damaging to force a foster family into a position where they felt unable to care for that child anymore (multiple school runs that disrupted work and homelife for everybody) than it would to agree to send the foster child to the same school as any older children."

Historically, this has been the case- but it should be challenged, as it is not on its own an acceptable reason for choosing a school for a Looked After Child. LAC should access the highest quality education available to them, hence the admissions criteria.

Consistency in education is key- Virtual Heads are working to reduce the number of school moves experienced by LAC; school can often be the only constant in their lives.

Children who have been placed in the same school as foster siblings can find themselves in a very difficult position if the placement breaks down and they face either seeing the previous foster carer at school or dealing with another school move.

A school needs to be chosen which will best meet the needs of the Looked After Child, regardless of the needs of the foster carer. If a school is found which is suitable for both, that is excellent, but the child's needs take priority over the foster carer's. The expectation is that the foster carer will prioritise the education of the child in their care; after all, many LAC will already be attending a school, and the foster carers are expected to accommodate this unless the distance is too far for the child to travel.

Any LAC placed at a school which is rated by OFSTED as a 3 or 4 in order to minimise the impact on foster carers will result in serious questions by OFSTED when they inspect Children's Services.

It is quite shocking really that legally ensured priority has only existed since the 2012 Admissions Code changes so is still very new

Pardon?

Priority for LAC has existed in every version of the Admissions Code. All the most recent version did was extend that to former LAC who have been adopted.

My adopted son has been refused a place at his sister's RC school.
We're not RC. Our daughter was given this school it was not our preference. Now it's over subscribed the siblings face being split. They've suffered severe trauma and loss. Im appealing. The admissions is so confusing I just thought they got priority. Been told we must baptise him to even get to top of waiting list. The birth mother was a RC traveller but no chance of finding if baptised!
I can't actually believe I'm in this situation. The other school is also full so can't even move my daughter.

Hi Donut

• LAC children not of faith are allowed to be below all children of faith
• If your DD is also adopted (unclear to me), she would be top of any waiting list if you did want to move her

I suggest you start your own thread on this as this is very old, and see what chance you might have for appeal based on

• being adopted
• extra needs of your son to be with his sister
• you having been allocated the school originally

Yes if worst comes to worst I could move her. She very settled however. She's adopted so would be top of list.