Glenthorne High School - Admission Policy Change 2023

[smilingnoble]

My DS is in Yr 5. We are living quite close to Glenthorne and hoping that he can get a place in 2023.

However, we just realise that the school now proposes to add priority to admit primary students under the same Trust, above distance.

We think the proposed arrangement is unfair to students studying in other primary school as this priority is applicable to all places (except Worcester and art).

www.glenthorne.sutton.sch.uk/app/os#!bandingreg/2022-registrations

I will reflect my concern to the school but just feeling very frustrated about the sudden change. What else can we do? Is there any successful case that the school will withdraw their proposal?

Thank you in advance.

Realistically, there is very little you can do I think.

It is completely legal under the Admission Code for a school to have named feeder schools, as long as the selection of these schools is transparent and on reasonable grounds. Given these are the only other 2 schools in the trust with Glenthorne, and are both pretty close to Glenthorne (so not cherry picking schools from a specific preferred area a distance away, for example), this is likely to meet that criteria.

There is nothing stopping you objecting of course, if lots of people do then it may have an affect. But i don't think it breaks the code. Even thought their admissions are fearsomely complicated!

Thank you very much for your reply. I share with your view that Glenthorne is legal to give priority to schools under the same Trust, though I hope they will allocate certain places to these schools but not all. Yea, I know the admission will become even more complicated by then.

Even without the new arrangements you can’t count on distance to get you in. I know people who live on the same road as the school who didn’t get a place.

I know that they have proposed this change a few times and it hasn't gone through yet. I am assuming enough people have objected in the past. The main problem is one of the primaries in the trust is not in the same borough. Considering they removed feeder schools when they bought in the banding test it seems very unfair they are now trying to give priority to pupils at a large primary school in Morden.

I understand that neighbouring local authorities are objecting to the proposed arrangements. It is unfair to propose banding and catchment as fair and then decide that actually they want feeder schools.