I am a bit perturbed by the admission arrangements to my nearest school which is wildly oversubscribed. I am trying to determine if they would be considered ‘unfair’ or lacking transparency under the Schools Admission Code and whether it is worth a referral to the Schools Adjudicator. If anyone has any expertise or experience, I would hugely appreciate your opinion.
I live in one of the villages. We are in the priority area for Town 1 and nowhere else. Town 1 is the only place that has a safe walking/cycling route and direct public transport, so I would strongly prefer to get a place at one of the two schools there, however, it is touch and go, with some people getting sent to undersubscribed schools in Town 2 or 3. Towns 2, 3 and 4 all have a slight surplus of school places. Both schools in Town 1 are extremely oversubscribed.
For the North school in town 1, the admission criteria are very standard: after children with specific needs and siblings, everyone in Town 1, and villages A-E gets considered on distance.
The South School is a bit different. It sets its own admission criteria and these are much more complicated:
• The most in need children (looked after, medical grounds, SEN),
• Siblings in priority area (Towns 1, 2 and Villages A-H)
• 100 places to children living in Town 1, firstly to those for whom it is the nearest school, then to any for whom it is not (with places offered in distance order)
• Remaining places are allocated on a proportional basis according to the number of applications, from Town 2 (to a max of 15 places) and villages A-H (no max). Once these places are allocated proportionally, each parish is offered their allocated places i) by distance, to children for whom it is the nearest school, then ii) randomly to anyone else if places remain.
What makes no sense to me is, because of the proportional allocation rule, there are more children getting into the school from Villages G and H and Town 2 than there are from the other villages (I’ve put the numbers on the diagram). Town 2 has its own schools, one of which is undersubscribed. Village H is also in the priority area for 5 schools in Town 4 and another just outside. Between them, these 6 schools have a slight surplus of places. Village E children get priority at 5 non-faith schools in Town 3, which between them also have a surplus of places.
My objections would be:
Overall, in the villages, more places end up allocated at random than by distance (in contrast to the rest of the priority area, i.e. Town 1), which disadvantages rural communities vs towns and makes it difficult for more difficult for village families to understand their chance of gaining a place.
Some of the villages have far more choice of schools - villages who have only got the choice of Town 1 schools (according to LA 'priority areas') are not sufficiently prioritized (as they are for the North School) resulting in these villages more likely to end up with a very distant school.
The current shape of the priority area doesn’t make sense – including Villages E, G and H and cutting out Town 3 seems like cherry picking of more affluent areas (Town 3 would have more children qualifying for pupil premium than any of the other towns or villages on the map).
If you’ve read all that, I thank you! Does anyone have any ideas?