Not so fair banding?

[SE13Mummy]

I've not had cause to post about school admissions for a while but something has come up locally and I'm hoping those in the know on here may be able to offer some insight...

As suggested by my username, I'm in SE13, Lewisham LA. Due to our location within the borough, the majority of children at my DCs' primary transfer to a Greenwich secondary. Until last year, both boroughs used Y5 QCA tests to divide children into five bands and allocated secondary places so 20% of the intake would be from each of the five bands. The idea behind this was to ensure comprehensive schools received a comprehensive intake.

Lewisham's 2016 intake for Y7 was the first for which banding was not part of the admissions policy for community schools. This was, in part, due to the QCA no longer producing the Y5 tests. Greenwich has continued with banding but is asking primary schools to identify children as belonging to one of three bands. Instead of an even distribution of places being available, 40% of places is made available to children 'exceeding expectations', 40% to those working 'at expectations' and 20% to those working 'towards expectations'.

Given that 2016 national data for the end of KS2 assessments shows 53% of Y6 children met the expected standard, and only 5% exceeded the expected standard in assessed subjects, it feels unfair that Greenwich's new banding will give schools an intake where 80% will be at/exceeding the expected standard. Even more unfair is that only 20% of the LA's places are available to children in band 3 (approx. 40% of 2016's Y6 children). Nationally, the KS2 results had a fairly normal distribution so I'd expect any banding system to follow something more along the lines of a 25%-50%-25% distribution.

It doesn't affect my own DCs but because of my job, I'm aware of at least three band 3 children, all with identified dyslexia, who've missed out on places at Greenwich schools that they could reasonably have expected to get into over the past 5 or so years. My feeling is that the removal of a standardised test, coupled with an uneven/unrepresentative distribution of places across the bands unreasonably disadvantages children in band 3.

Have I completely lost the plot or does this seem odd to anyone else?

I don't know the legalities of it, but it sounds very off, and selection by another name.

I'm yet to be convinced that fair banding ever achieves what it claims to set out to do (i.e. actually comprehensive), but at least the local school here that uses it claims to allocate bands according to the national profile (albeit not the local profile).

Bumping for the tea time readers...

That looks like a covert form of selection. It seems very odd. The only justification I can see is if schools were allocating children between the bands on a 40/40/20 basis even though that is unlikely to be reflected in actual outcomes. I am also rather dubious about the use of teacher assessment rather than a test. That strikes me as not being objective. Overall I think this arrangement could well be in breach of paragraph 1.26 of the Admissions Code. Please refer this to the Schools Adjudicator.

Thank you Tiggytape and prh47bridge . You've both confirmed what I felt to be the case. Having checked the LA's KS2 data for last year, 64% of children are recorded as meeting the expected standard so reserving 80% of places for the top two bands isn't reasonable (10% were assessed as exceeding the standard but Greenwich allocates 40% of places to this band).

I will look into how to refer this to the Schools Adjudicator.

prh47bridge I've had a look at how to refer this to the Schools Adjudicator and it seems to be set up primarily to contest individual schools' admissions policies, rather than a borough-wide one. Would your advice be to refer each of the schools I know to be using the 40-40-20 distribution?

Also, am I right in thinking that a child who has missed out on a school place due to maladministration should be given a place without needing to go to appeal? I appreciate that the LA may force the appeal so as to distance itself from the ensuing chaos of having to recalculate Y7 places for an entire cohort, but wondered if the parents were to make contact before submitting appeal paperwork, if that might result in a place being offered immediately (ish).

Yes, the form does rather assume that you are only complaining about one school. Some of the schools involved are academies so you would have to complain about them individually anyway as an academy is its own admission authority. So yes, I think you should refer each of the schools individually.

In theory yes, a child who has missed out due to maladministration should be awarded a place without needing an appeal. However, I doubt that will happen here. The LA is likely to dig in and defend its admission arrangements. If the Schools Adjudicator agrees that these arrangements are in breach of the Admissions Code they will have to change the criteria for next year's admissions but fixing it for this year will be a huge problem. They can't take away places that have already been offered so some schools will probably end up with far more people who have missed out than they can handle so they won't be able to offer places to everyone. I'm afraid I think it will need an appeal panel to sort it out.

First referral to the Schools Adjudicator has gone in. Another eight to go...

Hello
I, Simone Aspis work with the Alliance for Inclusive Education - I am looking into how "inclusive" the fair banding system is for disabled pupils. I was very interested in your posting - I am trying to understand how the system works and whether disabled pupils face any specific barriers can we have a chat please. I wonder whether parents of disabled pupils with profound LDs will just not apply for a m/s school place knowing that the child would be placed under undue stress. [email protected] www.allfie.org.uk

Thursday 8th November 2 jews walk Sydenham - tickets free by the link below ... Public meeting 7.30 - 9 pm

www.eventbrite.com/e/enoughs-enough-fund-education-stop-the-cuts-tickets-51460100546?fbclid=IwAR13zqaHHTI48sFRZNYtrdCQdWY7FoYD2oOBKV-N4sNilJnC-2bm1Gj2eas

In Lewisham there is a group called Parent Engage Lewisham which is a campaigning/liaison group on education issues, I wonder if there’s anything similar in Greenwich?
m.facebook.com/ParentENGage/