URGENT HELP PLEASE: Challenging council re removal of 'bulge' class

[RestingFebruaryFace]

Sorry for lengthy message, I don't want to drip feed.

Our local secondary catchment area has shrunk this year by over 40% from over 800m to just over 500m. This has left a huge amount of families without any of their choices, and they have instead been allocated either a single sex school or a faith school which is an hour's walk away.

There are a number of reasons behind this - this is the last high birth year and there were a huge number of sibling places allocated this year, meaning very few places left based on catchment. In addition, the school sold off land and two huge housing developments have been built adjacent to the school meaning lots of families have moved in to the area, squeezing others out.

This has left a number of families who have missed out completely devastated not to be getting their local school, which is a real 'community' school. Congestion in our town is already horrific so kids travelling to the faith school will only exacerbate this (there are no public transport options that work).

Apart from the general disappointment, families are angry because for the last 2 years the school added a 'bulge' class to go up from 7 form entry to 8 form entry. The expectation was they would do the same again this year, given the high birth rate and the effect of the new housing developments, but it has become clear only on allocation day that this did not happen. The school have issued a statement saying they wanted to add an 8th form again and for this to become permanent, and they even offered to contribute to the cost but the Council turned them down. This seems to be on the basis that there are places available elsewhere in the town (the faith school and the single sex school), and maybe this is a cheaper option for the Council than adding the bulge class, though I don't pretend to know much about the funding.

Parents are trying urgently to challenge the Council on this, and given the wealth of experience on here I was hoping someone may have some insight.

eg, are there any possible grounds for challenging the decision - should the council have consulted parents about not having a bulge class, or at least made this clear at the application stage so parents could plan accordingly? I'm not hopeful but we need to send something as soon as possible and I'm not sure we'll have time to research the legal detail for the initial complaint.

Thank you if you are able to assist at all.

I can see that they could replace the old science/library block but that would reduce space while that happens. New hall and drama blocks would be good!

I can’t see that happening in the next 2-3 years tho?

The short answer is no- the only schools that have places are the faith school and the single sex (boys) school. There may be a bit of movement on continuing interest but nowhere near enough for everyone who has missed out.

The school’s statement.

Trying that again as it wasn’t very legible

Here

I thought there were rules about the schools having to bus students in if it's their closest school with places. Would that apply to the girls or would they be expected to go to the religious school?

This happens every single year in St Albans. Every year. OP, I understand you're upset but this is likely such a waste of your energy. Options are a bit limited but I guess are either make peace with verulam/Townsend, go and visit them? See if any of the private schools have space? Homeschool? And then wait to see if a space comes up over time for Beaumont if you are still keen?

In fairness to you OP, I feel very sorry for people in your and similar positions. You've been caught in a double bind of huge number of houses built closer to the school than you (I'm guessing), and the 2 year bulge catching the massive birth years that they did means that you've got a tidal wave of siblings. They could easily have modeled that and warned you. Not that I guess it would make a difference to you as I suppose you'd be in the same position either way but some warning might have helped.

Same thing has happened at Sandringham some years, catchment has gone surprisingly tight and caught a lot of people out.

Also happens with primaries, over and over again.

Our school reduced its intake last year after having had a couple of years of increased intake….it has actually been a negative for the school having extra pupils in certain years and I am glad they have reduced it again ,so it’s swings ans roundabouts…and a number of local primaries have been consulting about reducing their intakes due to lower birth rates so the council in your area, looking ahead, is likely seeing no benefit in maintaining 1 schools high intake if spaces are unfilled elsewhere.

@RestingFebruaryFace if this is an academy, is 210 pupils not very low, or am I totally misunderstanding the abbreviations? in scotland our secondary schools have usually 1000 pupils. what is an 8 form entry? need help to understand

210 will be the number of pupils per year. 30 per class means a 7 class entry.

I agree with this. For years people have gambled by buying homes (at increasingly extortionate prices) as close to these two schools as possible and this year, for some, it hasn't paid off. That is why people are upset.

There is nothing wrong with children walking for an hour or taking a bus (all four schools can be accessed on the same bus route) I know many children thay do this and actually enjoy the freedom it offers.

for an extra class to be allowed parents will need to lobby Herts county council in Hertford. That might require funding being taken from another school or they might take it from gov funding for Beaumont’s rebuilding. But will they do this in time? It seems unlikely as they will have known the application figs a few months ago and haven’t done it yet but it might be worth trying for the 30 or so families who think they are near enough to benefit from that action

I think it very unlikely that kids will end up walking 4 miles to Townsend when places are released in the next two rounds. Places will come up at Sam Ryder and stags.

My school had this too- massively oversubscribed and had one bulge year but then council pulled funding for new building and also other local schools are not full so we went back to usual PAN. It's tricky but the council gave to look at the wider financial picture.

I didn't mean it was normal to walk 4 miles. The op said it's an hours walk which I took to be 4 miles. 4 miles is a normal
distance to travel for high school and many dc travel much further I would expect them to take a bus though or be driven.

My area doesn't have catchments people apply to the best schools in the city their dc are eligible for usually via faith or exams. Distances of six miles are normal. The dc who don't get into such schools go to whichever comprehensives have space distance is usually one of the eligibility factors below siblings but there are no catchment areas.

According to the statement from Beaumont, extra places were allocated but they went to other schools, not Beaumont. Given that there was clearly demand for Beaumont, this does seem obtuse.

This is all well and good, but actually the less desirable schools in our area are having money thrown at them, one of them actually has better facilities than some of the good schools, but all the money and resources in the world won’t change the main cohort of families using the school, the quality of teaching doesn’t magically get better, and in our area the exam results remain very poor. I’m happy to lobby to make things better at the bad schools, I’m not happy that my child is being disadvantaged by not receiving a good education while we wait for things to get better. That’s not even accounting for some schools being undesirable due to location or transport logistics.

I thought that. In our neck of the woods the LA provides transport if over 3 miles away for secondary and no public transport.

It's all very well for the school to say they were willing to contribute but given that capital budgets are very low now, to contribute meaningfully, the school would have to divert funds that should be spent on current students to pay for building work.

It makes no sense for the LA to increase the capacity of one school if others are underfilled.

Spending money on all schools does help eventually. St Albans schools used to bus in kids from all over and now it is more local families using them. Ultimately that reduces journeys.

beaumont had five class intake not that long ago so it has grown a lot compared to other schools in the area, just for context

If the school wants the extra class, what happens if they just don't put up any opposition to any appeals? If the appeals panel agrees that the school could accommodate the extra pupils, then they can let them all in on appeal. Funding is per pupil, so that wouldn't be an issue, and the school can just decide to have more classes; the PAN doesn't dictate how many classes there should be. I don't know whether the appeal panel has to take the views of the LA into account, though.

They could indeed do that, but it is a bit risky if the number is of appeals is, say, between 10-15. That's not really enough to fund another form, budget-wise, but would 2 to each existing form which would make forms very large. It would also make them super unpopular with other local schools so may have impacts on local working relationships - it's a single academy trust, so is likely to have relationships with local schools rather than support from other schools in a MAT. It does happen though, I've sat on maybe 3-4 panels in the last 10 years where schools have put up no arguments (for a few different reasons).