Manchester Admissions change

[cartoonsaveme]

I have just seen that the Manchester admissions criteria for children moving primary - secondary is likely to change. There will no longer be cat 4 priority for those children at a Manchester state primary. This makes me a bit nervous - both we and our local school are close to the LA border (lots of Manchester secondaries are close to borders), so should be OK, but lots of our friends are not and could get nudged out. If lots of people apply across LAs we could face a worse places crisis that we are already. Stockport and Trafford have feeder schools, making it harder to move that way? I am going to complete the consultation doc but was wondering if anyone else had?

This change is because the current arrangements in Manchester for secondary schools have been deemed to be not legal against the school admission regulations. The current arrangements have been questioned over a good few years as to whether they were legal or not.
It is illegal to disadvantage families resident in other local authorities who apply for schools in another area. This original judgement is called the Greenwich judgement and goes back to 1989. The other key judgement is the Rotherham judgement that goes back to 1997 which confirmed that there is nothing unlawful in the principle of admission authorities operating catchment zones as an over-subscription criteria, thereby giving priority to local children whose parents have expressed a preference for the school. However admission authorities must not guarantee places to parents in the local catchment area, nor must the catchment zone discriminate only in favour of some.

So I guess the consultation is more if a processes of simply informing people then? The two rulings do contradict each other a bit. Catchments can exclude those over a LA border who are very close but not in catchment ?

They don't really contradict each other.

If a school has a formal catchment area those outside the catchment area have a lower chance of getting in. Those living outside the LA have the same chance as those living out of catchment inside the LA. Indeed, applicants from outside the LA who are close to the school may have a better chance than applicants from inside the LA who are outside the catchment.

What is illegal is an arrangement that ensures everyone living within the LA is treated as higher priority than applicants from outside the LA. So it is ok to have admission categories:

• inside catchment
• outside catchment

It is not ok to have admission categories:

• inside catchment
• outside catchment but inside the LA
• outside catchment and outside the LA

Trafford doesn't have feeder schools AFAIK

Trafford don't have feeder schools.

I have to confess I don't quite understand the grammar school applications minefield but children from Manchester LA make up 50% of the pupils at our closet Trafford grammar.

SGS ?

Stockport doesn't have feeder schools either. Admissions work on the basis of catchment areas. You get a higher priority if you live in the catchment but there is no guarantee of a place. If you are out of catchment, distance becomes the decider once all catchment children have been allocated a place.

bullseye I think you might be wrong with your statistics there (although I don't know which Trafford grammar school you're talking about) but each of them fill places from catchment in the main. There are places for out of catchment children, but nowhere near 50%.

mandy well, you are right, it isn't 50% - in 2014 it was 43%, 2013 43%, 2012 42% and 2011 55% pupils not from Trafford LA.

Which school Bullseye?

Stretford ?? I only guess as so close to Manchester border

Yes, Stretford. I only mentioned it as a point with regards to attending school across the LA borders. (I had a look on some of the other grammar websites (Altrincham, Sale & Urmston) but they don't include any information as to where their pupils come from)