Free Schools, siblings and the 50% Rule?

[ableymabley]

A tiny little CofE free school I'm interested in has several oversubscription criteria - 1. LAC, 2. Siblings, 3. Pupil Premium, 4. exceptional medical, then finally splits whatever is left between faith places and open places according to the 50% rule.

Surely the 50% rule should be applied to all of the places? I've no problem with criteria 1,3 and 4, which are faith-neutral, but the Sibling criteria will definitely include some families that originally got faith places. Does that criteria count as being "without reference to faith"? Should the sibling priority not be applied once the 50/50 split has taken place? That's what other schools I've looked at seem to do.

Also, if there's an odd number of places to be split 50/50, how will it be managed? It's a very small school, so every place counts!

But then you run the risk of saying "sorry joe blogs. We know you have 3 siblings here but we've had our quota of faith/non-faith (delete as appropriate) places and therefore you're out on your ear.

Cracking for you trying to get your child in; chronically unfair if your child is your 4th and off to a different school.

They've set the admissions criteria. Apply. If you get in you get in, if you don't then accept it and move on.

Er, thanks for that Pottering but admissions policies need to be clearly defined and legal. So no, I won't "move on" until someone with a bit more knowledge about what is and isn't legal reassures me there isn't an issue.

It's potentially worse if the 50% is allocated up front.

One local to friends of ours has 15 community and 15 religious places.
But community places are allocated first, so in reality many if not most of them go to siblings, quite likely siblings of religious place children.
So it's more like
10 sibling places
5 community new family places
15 religious new family places

Your way it would be
10 sibling places
10 community new entrant places
10 religious new entrant places

and due to the 50% of new entrants fewer of the siblings will be from religious families too.

catkind it sounds like yours isn't a free school. The 50% Rule only applies to free schools. They have a legal duty to allocate 50% of places without reference to faith. So in the case of .....
10 sibling places
10 community new entrant places
10 religious new entrant places
...if the 10 siblings are all from faith families then surely only 33% of places are allocated without reference to faith.

I don't know how the legal ins and outs work but surely the sibling criteria is allocating places without reference to faith. The siblings could be 100% with faith or 100% without faith but they'd still get in. Their faith or lack of faith has no bearing on them getting a place.

Sproglets well yes that's one interpretation, but I don't know if it's the right one. That's what I'm asking.

In that Wiki article I linked to it says there was a school which was caught out by the adjudicator for allocating some of their "without reference to faith" places to kids at a CE primary feeder school. So, I'd have thought this was the same sort of thing.

abley the school that prioritised CE feeder schools also allocated spaces to siblings (and other normal categories) before it split the remaining places between faith/non-faith. The fact they still do this probably answers your question whether it's a valid thing to do.

That's a good point whoareyou123

The sibling criteria is without reference to faith because they do not further give preference to siblings of children who met the criteria of the original faith places when they were applying for school places.

If you take the first admission criteria of LAC, it would have been possible for the school to have split this criteria into LAC of the faith and then LAC of other faith if they wished to. However they did not, probably because the possibility of LAC is going to be low anyway. When it comes to criteria 2, which is siblings, yes they could have split it again into faith and non-faith applicants but chose, in my opinion within the admission code, to admit all siblings before other admission criteria.
What the 50% rule says in the admission code is that where the school is oversubscribed at least 50% of places are to be allocated without reference to faith. As the school is allocating places to LAC, siblings and exceptional medical without reference to faith and then splitting the rest of the places 50/50 faith and non-faith, they must be meeting the requirement that at least 50% of places have been allocated without reference to faith. The admission criteria is therefore in my opinion legal.
If you go into the detailed explanation of the admission criteria for the school, probably on their website or definitely in the LA document on school admissions from September, I would expect it to clarify what happens where there are an uneven number of places to allocate. To be honest they could jump either way on it but it should be there somewhere. If you cannot see it, ask the school in writing for the answer. I am sure they will then give you an answer.

It's "without reference to faith", not to applicants without faith or even applicants not applying under the faith criterion. The school you refer to are allocating more than 50% without reference to faith - all of categories 1-4 as well as 50% of the rest.

I don't think you can prevent faith applicants from accessing community places if they qualify under the criteria - indeed according to your wiki link schools have been deemed in breach of the admissions code for trying to do so.

What does make a big difference is order - if you allocate faith places first, the best qualified faith candidates will get faith places and leave more community places for non-faith applicants. If you allocate community places first, however, more faith candidates will soak up community places and non faith applicants get shafted. As in my friends' example, which as you say isn't afaik a free school, but is technically allocating (the first) 50% of places without reference to faith. I'd be interested to know if this system would be permitted by the free school rules.

I agree with Admission. In my view the school is in the clear on this one. They are allocating at least 50% of places without reference to faith. The fact that a child may get in because their sibling was admitted on faith grounds does not, in my view, mean that the younger child has been allocated on faith grounds. If you did want to split siblings you would then get into questions as to which category to put families where the older child qualified on faith grounds but they no longer qualify for priority on the basis of faith.

I may be wrong but I would be surprised if the Schools Adjudicator or the courts found that these admission criteria were in breach of the Admissions Code.

You also need to consider that over the years (unless the faith is much more likely to have more children/family) it should even out. If half of first borns are of a particular faith and half are not then on average in future years half of siblings will be of faith and half not. It might not be true in the particular year in which you apply - could go either way, but on average it would be.

I think if you have more than one child, you would appreciate sibling rule. It's horrible to send children to different schools, logistics nightmare.
My ds is only child, but totally understand my ds's school having sibling in higher category.

It won't necessarily be half long term, it's quite possible a proportion of community places will go to applicants also qualifying for religious preference. Depends how easy the religious criterion is to qualify for and how religious the local population. And, critically, whether community or religious places are assigned first - I'm assuming religious if it's going to get near 50%.

Thanks all. Your interpretations make sense. I just wasn't sure if it was was an issue that had been formally looked at by the adjudicator, because different schools take such different approaches implying some confusion, but I expect one of you would know if it had.

Yes there have definitely been referrals to the schools adjudicator along the same lines (though each situation is unique) and they have declined to take any action.
Just to be clear the way that the 50/50 places should be allocated is that two sub categories are produced, one which is those that indicated a faith criteria and one that is not. So if there are say 8 places available for the category, the top 4 from the faith criteria will be offered places along with the top 4 that are non-faith. What they do if there is an uneven number should be in the admission criteria some where but my suspicion would be it would go to a faith applicant.

Is that right admission? So if there are 8 religious candidates each living at a distance of 1 mile and 4 irreligious ones living at a distance of 2 miles, all else being equal the places go to 4 religious and 4 irreligious? I'd have thought that would fail the "without reference to faith" criterion as the religious applicants have been actively discriminated against for the community places.

What Admission has described is what actually happens at many faith schools. My view is that "without reference to faith" means that the faith candidates should be in the running for the community places as otherwise they are being excluded from them on faith grounds. However, there has not, as far as I am aware, been any definitive ruling on this as yet.

How about the paragraph about St Michael's Cambourne in OP's wiki link prh, would that be a relevant case?

Yes, agree with Catkind. And I think there was also something implied in para 77 of this judgement about open places at a voluntary aided school being made equally accessible to faith applicants.

I agree that the adjudication in the St Richard Reynold's case appears to support my view and that in the St Michael's case does so explicitly. However, despite being aware of these judgements, the Catholic church continues to believe it that children qualifying under faith criteria cannot be considered for community places.

Definitive was perhaps the wrong word in my last post. Universally accepted might have been better. I suspect that the Catholic church and some schools of other faiths will continue to believe faith applicants must not be considered for community places until there has been a ruling from the courts.

Always an education, thanks prh :)

In my experience if odd number it goes to community not faith.

In my experience if odd number it goes to community not faith.

You would hope so, otherwise less than 50% of their places would be open places.