Dual catchment areas, free school transport and the Schools Admissions Code

[SausageDogFace]

In advance of possibly asking the Schools Adjudicator for a ruling, I wondered if anyone could sense check my argument and/or comment on any similar experience.

Apologies that all the Ps and Qs make the below look like an algebra question! Thank you in advance to anyone who ploughs through it all.

In my area, secondary school catchments are defined in terms of feeder primary catchments.

I live in a village which is in catchment for primary P, and so feeds into secondary B. The area is sufficiently rural that all children in the catchment of P are entitled to free transport to secondary B, since it is more than three miles away from all.

In recent years, however, many children have instead opted for secondary A. Because secondary A is actually closer to our village than secondary B, the Local Authority are prepared to accept secondary A as the designated school for transport purposes. And, because secondary A is also (just) over three miles away, free transport to secondary A is also provided to any who desire it. This is not the case for all children in the catchment of primary P, but is certainly true for any who live in our village (the largest in the catchment of primary P, and where primary P is actually located).

However, since primary P is not a feeder for secondary A, by default children from our village are in the bottom priority category for admissions to secondary A. And admission to secondary A has recently started to become much harder for children from our village to secure.

Secondary A is fed into by a number of primary schools. For most, secondary A is the only school with which these primaries have a relationship. There is no problem with this, even though many living in the catchment area of these schools are much more distant from secondary A than we are.

However, two primaries, Q and R, have recently gained dual feeder status to secondary A, as well as their "default" secondary (different ones in each case, say C and D). Both primary Q and primary R are relatively distant from secondary A. So distant, in fact, that the Local Authority will not recognise secondary A as a designated school for either Q or R. Funded transport is only provided to secondaries C or D for the children from primary Q and R. Children from primaries Q and R are only therefore able to access secondary A if their parents are prepared to pay to get them there.

Primary P recently asked secondary A if a similar dual feeder area arrangement would be possible. It was turned down.

My contention is that the current interaction between dual feeder status and free transport means that the admissions policy of secondary A violates Section 1.9f of the Schools Admission Code. The key comparison is primary P as a non-feeder from which free transport to secondary A is routine (for at least some subset of children) vs. primaries Q and R as a dual feeders from which transport – and so in turn entry to secondary A – is only available to those who can pay. The admission policy of secondary A therefore appears to "give priority to children according to the financial status of parents applying" (even if indirectly and/or inadvertently).

My questions: does this hold water? Does anyone have any similar experience? Is there anything else to think about?

On what grounds were Q & R given feeder status to Secondary A?
Is it gerrymandering (ie they provide 'better' kids), or is it because they are part of the same academy chain, or something else?

You aren't affected by this 'ability to pay' thing are you? You just don't want other kids leapfrogging yours (fair enough). Can people not impacted still challenge the code?

Is Secondary A an academy, if so convertor or part of a chain?

No knowledge, but enjoy reading the arguments from the experts.

Secondary A used to be heavily over-subscribed, but a new school (Secondary C) was built a few years ago in a place that Secondary A previously took lots of pupils from. I don't think Secondary A was ever under-subscribed - indeed, it is wildly popular - but at that point Primary Q (and one other primary, which I didn't mention before since I think the transport issue does not apply) applied for and gained dual feeder status.

This was the same point at which most children from my village started choosing Secondary A (over B), perhaps accelerated by the availability of free transport. However no formal arrangement was made between Secondary A and (our) Primary P. But since our village was so geographically close to Secondary A, all who wanted a place could get one.

Primary R become a dual feeder much more recently. This followed that school joining the Multi-Academy Trust. This was originally centered entirely on Secondary A (but which now includes a number of other secondaries, and recently started expanding to include primaries too).

Not much of an argument for gerrymandering. The KS2 SATs results at the Ofsted "Outstanding" Primary Q are better than at primary P. Proportions with FSM are lower at Q, too. However, it would be impossible to build a convincing argument that standards at P are poor, or that it is in any way highly deprived.

About your second para "You aren't affected..."; can you rephrase, since it isn't clear what I am being asked?

This is a bit of a mess. My immediate reaction is to query why the LA transport section is allowing free transport to school A, when it is not a feeder school other than for historic reasons. If parents could not access the free bus, I wonder how many would be putting school A as their preference.
School A has made decisions on what basis for primary schools Q and R to be dual feeder status? They then should have considered the decision around primary school A on the same basis. So is there a real difference, which would accept this refusal or is it as you suspect around the potential cohort of pupils?
One possible reason is that secondary school A needs to be considering the PAN of the school in the context of the possible number of pupils that could want to come to the school from the catchment primary schools. There is a point where the PANs of the primary schools substantially outweigh the PAN of school A. At that point the admission criteria of school A is not valid because there will always be much more primary pupils than can be admitted to the secondary school. Hopefully that makes sense as to why school A might have taken the decision to turn down Primary P.
I will be honest and say I think that your reasoning is somewhat tenuous unless you have some clear evidence that points to deliberate decisions being made by school A to twist their intake.
The other point to make is that no matter what the situation is, appeals this year are going to be decided on the actual admission criteria as they stand. The school adjudicator even if they did rule in your favour on this, will take a lot longer than you have. Any objection should have been made at the point that school A made the change to the admission criteria.

See I knew an expert would be coming along.

My point re not affected, is that you personally aren't impacted by your 'ability to pay' argument. In fact you would get free transport to A if your child got in.

Obviously though you are affected as more kids now have priority over yours, which is I assume why you are questioning, not just out of some altruistic sense for the poorer parents in Q & R.

@TeenPlusTwenties thanks for clarifying. Yes, our family is not affected, since we would be allocated free transport. And yes, I am embarrassed to confirm my question is - more or less - entirely based on self-interest rather than altruism!

@admission thanks for all this. I particularly appreciate your take on my reasoning; do you think being tenuous is important. Is the Schools Adjudicator a "letter of the law" type institution, or a more pragmatic one? This is unclear to me as a parent.

I agree it is a bit of mess! Taking your questions in turn

I do not know for sure, but I think the Local Authority grant transport because they are duty bound to (since Secondary A is closer to our village than Secondary B, and so must be accepted as the designated school for transport purposes).

I cannot say for sure about how many would choose Secondary A without free transport. I suspect some would, based on its very strong reputation, but others would be priced out.

Secondary A's motives are - of course - opaque. I suspect that they accepted Primary Q (and the other I didn't dignify with a letter) a few years back since they - at that particular time - had more places than children guaranteed to fill them, and so it was a logical thing to do. Since then - driven by the expansion of the Multi Academy Trust to encompass Primary R (and another larger primary which only feeds into Secondary A, and so with which I have no issue) - we are approaching exactly the point at which they are reliably full year-on-year from their catchment alone. So Secondary A's decision to turn down Primary P this year was entirely logical.

My problem with it is - at least if argument is correct - that it leads to a contradiction of the rules by which admissions must work. Logical and fair decisions have been made at each stage, but now we find ourselves in a position which is potentially rule-breaking. My question is whether the School Adjudicator is likely to see it this way, or whether pragmatic will win

And in answer to your final, although I think children from Primary P are being deleteriously affected this year, my own children are a little younger (and so there is still time for things to change before they apply to any secondary).

You say "any objection should have been made at the point that school A made the change to the admission criteria". Is that how it works; you have to challenge in the year of any alteration? The tipping-the-balance change to include Primary R, which went through last year. But part of our contention is that the consultation was not sufficiently wide - such that we only knew about this change this year - and so if we did go ahead, we could include details on precisely how few were consulted with last year if needed?

ps @admission sorry, I missed one of your points. I do not suspect Secondary school A of doing anything nefarious "around the potential cohort of pupils" (other than perhaps preferentially offering secondary school feeder status to incoming members of the Multi Academy Trust, but I get the feeling the Schools Adjudicator connives at that). I am not claiming that anything other than logical or - reasonably - fair decisions were made at each stage. As I said, my issue is with where this chain of decisions leaves us, and whether than can be said to be in line with the Code.

I think there are often curious anomalies just because of the way things have evolved over time, and academy chains probably don't help.

I'm waiting with interest to see what happens in our area to school S, fed by primaries X, Y, and Z. A new settlement with secondary T is nearer than S to primary Y, and a big expansion of the area where primary Z is will see a new secondary there too. So where will school S get its pupils, other than primary X? There are some coming from the nearer feeders of secondary U, but I suspect there needs to be some reorganisation for those to officially feed S - there's probably enough expansion the other side of U for them to take more from there.

I'm not an expert by any means, but the LEA is not duty bound to offer transport to B at all now. Strictly speaking it only has to offer free transport to the nearest school the child could have been admitted to.

That obviously was B, in the basis that children from P would have been too low down on the criteria, being non-catchment, but now that children are being admitted to A from P, the LEA isn't obliged to offer free transport to B any more.

In the case you raise I guess it is incumbent on School S to make changes since they need pupils to fill their places. So the anomaly will be fixed since what is in the interest of School S is also change they can drive.

But as you imply, it is difficult to understand that it is better that there is now any number of individual bodies making their own rules in their own favour, rather than what I understand was the previous system in which the Local Authority were tasked with coming up with something that worked for all schools.

However, this is the we/I are faced with system: my question is whether Secondary A are: i) actually breaking the rules; ii) whether it is a sufficiently strong break that the regulator will insist on a change to their admissions policy?

I’m completely confused by your question but wanted to respond as we challenged the Admissions policy at our local secondary when ds was in y6. The Schools Adjudicator agreed with us that the policy did not meet the Admissions Code but that was all that happened. They school didn’t change their policy and ds didn’t get in. We did appeal however and got a space but that was more to do with an extra class rather than anything else.

So what I’m trying to say is even if the regulator agrees that they are breaking the rules, in my experience it didn’t mean that they had to change them.

However the process of going to the Schools Adjudicator was simple enough - have you read all the rulings on the website?

The school adjudicator has to abide by the letter of the law.
You can go to the adjudicator to argue that the admission criteria is incorrect with the objection being referred to the adjudicator by 30th June in the determination year for mandatory requirements of the admission code.
To be honest what I think is irrelevant, if you believe that school A has an admission criteria which disadvantages school P, then you should go to the adjudicator and get an official reaction.

@titchy thank you for this, which is really interesting and different to how I understood the rules. Does this come from an interpretation of what is in consult.education.gov.uk/home-to-school-transport-and-admissions-team/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-statutory-guid/ (particularly para 28 and 29)?

I judge it not to help my case (since there would lots of people would like their children to get a place at but who currently can't, and I suppose I am arguing all such schools should be forced to change their policy)?

@FlexibleFox thanks. I agree it is confusing; might just be that it is, indeed, tenuous! Very interesting that your experience shows the Adjudicator as being toothless. I wonder how common this is?

I have read a fair few judgments on the website, but didn't see anything directly analogous, so thought I'd ask here. Thanks again to all for the help!

@admission thanks; agree that it is not you making the decision and so in the final analysis what you think is not important (sorry!), but from your past posts on this type of topic, you seem very knowledgeable. So your insight would be appreciated, even if it is just to confirm "this is a tenuous load of nonsense; I wouldn't bother wasting the price of a stamp". Thanks!

@titchy, note I am not quite arguing all such schools should change their policy, only the ones for which there is at least some place from which admission is currently difficult, but from which they would get free transport if successful and where the dual feeder is far enough away to make walking/cycling not an option. But nevertheless, there will still be a fair few such cases country-wide I'd guess...

Paragraph 27 of the pdf you linked to says:

Child I attends a boys’ secondary school that is 5.3 miles from his home. His nearest school is a co-educational secondary school 3.4 miles away. The co-educational school is Child I’s nearest suitable school.

I hesitate to predict what the Schools Adjudicator would decide as they've surprised me a few times in the past. The only way to be sure is to refer it to them. However, my view is that a referral will fail. You are basically saying that the admission policy discriminates against applicants from primary schools Q and R because they don't get free transport.

Free transport is a matter for the local authority, not the school. They are obliged to provide free transport if the child lives more than the statutory walking distance from the school and there are no places available at nearer schools. They are also obliged to provide free transport in a range of other circumstances. One that may be relevant here is that if a child attending Q or R is entitled to free school meals, secondary A is within 6 miles of home and there are no more than 2 nearer secondary schools the child is entitled to free transport.

In my view the dual feeder status is an irrelevance to this argument. Children who attend Q or R would generally not be entitled to free transport to school A regardless of whether or not their primary school has feeder status. By making Q and R feeder schools, A has increased the chances of children from those schools getting places. It seems odd to argue that this policy actually discriminates against them.

The fact that P is not a feeder means children from that school have less chance of getting entry than children from Q and R. You may be able to argue that the decision not to make P a feeder was wrong but I doubt you will succeed with an argument about children from Q and R being disadvantaged by not being given free transport.

I agree with prh47bridge. I think you need to separate the issues about admissions criteria from the issues about free transport (even though these may well shape some people's school preferences). You can ask the adjudicator to determine whether the admissions arrangements are reasonable and comply with the code but I doubt they will want to say anything about the transport policy.

Thank you both @prh47bridge and @PanelChair for your carefully thought out feedback. From what I have read here before, I think you are both experts, and such advice is exactly what I was after.

I agree that - to the extent I had one at all - my argument against the admissions policy of Secondary A would be resolved by free transport being granted to children from Primary Q and Primary R. So in some sense I see that I was arguing that there is something discriminatory affecting children from Q and R.

But - setting aside my entirely selfish concern that any chance to help them wouldn't help my children - granting children from Primary Q and Primary R isn't in Secondary school A's gift. As you say, who gets funded transport and why is up to the Local Authority.

What school A do have control over is their admissions policy. And as it stands, their policy favours the "rich kids" from Primary Q and Primary R over the hoi polloi from Primary P. So I was trying to argue that the sole thing the school can influence discriminates against those from Primary P.

(As an aside, the Local Authority relevant to where we live seems to choose to use the discretion referred to in para 59 of
consult.education.gov.uk/home-to-school-transport-and-admissions-team/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-statutory-guid/
to routinely grant free transport to all children who live more than 3 miles away to their catchment school in cases where there is only one, and to their "original" catchment school in cases where there is a dual feeder arrangement, so dual feeders is necessary to drive the little argument I have, but I realise now that there is no longer a statutory requirement to do this).

What I do take on board that now three members with I think very detailed knowledge of how this works have suggested there is little chance of success. So - unless anyone else has an insight that I can use - I think I will let the matter drop...