HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
CABINET
MONDAY 15 DECEMBER 2008 AT 2.00 P.M
ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS FOR NURSERY, PRIMARY, JUNIOR AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND THE CO-ORDINATED SCHEMES FOR ADMISSION TO SCHOOLS FOR 2010/11
Report of the Director of Children, Schools and Families
Authors: Glenda Hardy – Head of Admissions and Transport
Tel 01992 555862 and
Sarah Vize – Senior Manager, Admissions and Transport
Tel 01992 555933
Executive Member: Keith Emsall
1. Purpose of the Report
1.1 For Cabinet to authorise consultation on proposed changes to the admission arrangements, rules and schemes of co-ordination for 2010/11.
1.2 For 2009 admissions Cabinet is asked to approve the allocation of funding in the current Children, Schools and Families budget for a capital works at Hollywell, Cowley Hill and Greenway schools.
2. Summary
2.1 This report provides the information and draft documents for Cabinet to consider authorising consultation on the proposed admission arrangements for 2010/11. It outlines the changes to the current admission arrangements proposed for consultation.
2.2 Pre-consultation took place during part of November and it is recommended that the suggested proposals proceed to consultation with the exception of moving Kimpton to the co-educational Priority Area 1, Hitchin.
2.3 The countywide changes include an option to change continuing interest arrangements, introducing a single under 11’s allocation day, moving under 11’s allocation day to later in the year, introducing a change to the wording of the primary admission arrangements where key stage one prejudice exists, to prevent twins and multiple births from being allocated different schools, and tightening the definition of Rule 4 for community secondary co-educational schools.
2.4 Also proposed are changes to local arrangements:
(i) Moving the King’s Walden and St Paul’s Walden parishes from Priority Area 7 to co-educational Priority Area 1, Hitchin and
(ii) Splitting Priority Area 6 into two and introducing individual oversubscription arrangements for The Kings Langley School.
2.5 The report sets out the proposed admission rules for community and voluntary-controlled schools for 2010/11, the schemes of co-ordination for primary and secondary admissions, and the proposed Published Admission Numbers (PANs) for individual schools.
3. Recommendations
3.1 For consultation next term (from 4 January 2009 to 1 March 2009), Cabinet is asked to agree for 2010/11 admissions:
(i) The proposals for community and voluntary controlled infant, first, primary, junior, middle, secondary (including Year 12) and in year admissions;
(ii) The draft schemes of co-ordination for primary and secondary schools;
(iii) The PANs for individual schools, including the small percentage of schools where the number is below the ‘net capacity’.
3.2 Cabinet is also asked to approve the allocation of funding in the current Children, Schools and Families budget for capital works at Hollywell, Cowley Hill and Greenway schools.
4. Background:
4.1 Pre-consultation has taken place recently on possible changes with the Hertfordshire Association of Secondary Headteachers, The Primary Heads Forum, The Governors Forum, West Hertfordshire Association of Secondary Headteachers, Bovingdon Eligible Parents, district council representatives from St Albans District Council and Three Rivers District Council, The Twins and Multiple Births Association (TAMBA) and several primary school headteachers in the King’s Walden, St Paul’s Walden and Kimpton areas. Meetings have taken place with a number of the key identified stakeholders and the feedback to the pre-consultation is summarized in Appendix 1.
4.2 The Admission Forum will meet on 3 December 2008, and will consider the feedback to the pre-consultation. The Forum’s feedback will be provided to Cabinet when it meets on 15 December 2008.
4.3 The DCSF recently completed a consultation on proposals to revise the current School Admissions Code and School Appeals Code. It is understood this will be laid before Parliament in December 2008 and as a result some changes could come forward for admission from 2010.
4.4 The current law on school admissions is contained in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. The Education and Skills Bill, which is currently progressing through Parliament, will make changes to the law, provided that it receives Royal Assent. This includes a new local consultation process for determining admission arrangements and the timetable and process for consultation as set out in Appendix 2, takes this into account.
4.5 The DCSF propose to replace the current requirement for admission authorities to consult on their admission arrangements every year, by 1 March, whether or not those arrangements have changed. The proposal is to replace this requirement for annual consultation with a requirement to consult only every three years, unless changes have been made to the arrangements since the previous consultation.
4.6 All admission authorities are required to consult on their proposed arrangements for 2010. The draft School Admissions (Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2009, which formed part of DCSF school admissions consultation, also introduces a new requirement for ‘relevant’ parents and other groups with an interest in the proposed admission arrangements, for example community groups, to be consulted. A ‘relevant’ parent is defined as a parent living in the local area with a child aged between two and sixteen, and who has been, is, or will be eligible to apply to the school in question. The draft Regulations require consultation to take place for a minimum of eight weeks between 1 December and 1 March to ensure that parents and community groups have the opportunity to respond.
4.7 The admission arrangements for community and voluntary-controlled schools for 2010/11 will be determined by the County Council on 31 March 2009, following recommendations made by Cabinet on 16 March 2009 following the outcome of next term’s consultation.
Pre-consultation proposals
5. Proposal 1: Restricting the opportunity for parents to express new preferences at Continuing Interest (CI)
5.1 This proposal allows for families to pursue their original higher ranked unsatisfied preferences.
5.2 In contrast with the current continuing interest arrangement where parents can re-express their preferences afresh at any point in the continuing interest process, this alternative proposal would require parents to consider more fully how well they met the admissions criteria at the beginning of the admissions process, prior to making their original application.
5.3 Such an arrangement could be seen to be more equitable, save for exceptions for those who move house (say over three miles from their current home address), or where there are exceptional and extenuating circumstances (this latter aspect would allow us to apply discretion, either based on an individual or local circumstance).
6. Proposal 2: Introducing a single under 11s allocation day
6.1 This would encompass allocations for reception intake to primary, infant and first schools, junior transfer at Year 3 and admission to middle schools at Year 5 using the same timetable. The benefit of this single under 11s allocation day is that it supports families in keeping the dates for applications and allocations as simple as possible, without the worry of different application deadlines for different members of their family.
7. Proposal 3: Moving under 11 allocations to later in the year
7.1 One of the less family friendly arrangements in existence relates to the timing of the primary allocations in mid January each year. This timetable inevitably results in a number of late applications. In contrast with some neighbouring authorities, the Hertfordshire allocation date is earlier and this can lead to possible multiple offers to families because there is no formal cross border co-ordination. In the recent DCSF admissions consultation, the matter of requiring certain standard dates for primary admissions has been raised, including co-ordination with other local authorities.
In brief the two timetables compare as follows:
Activity / Status Quo / Suggested proposalDeadline for on-time applications / Thursday 15 October 2009 / Late January 2010
Offer letters posted for delivery / Thursday 14 January 2010 / Mid/Late April 2010
Appeals heard / Mid February to mid March 2010 / Latter part of June 2010
7.2 The advantages of the status quo, is that it is an established date known by all professionals in schools and the early years settings. And it means that primary allocations are administered and published prior to the delivery of the secondary transfer process. In turn this allows for appeals to be heard from February onwards. The disadvantages of the status quo is that by having such an early closing date for applications (mid October) that families can miss this important date. Late applications are then made and because of the restrictions of class size key stage one legislation, many families are disappointed.
7.3 The advantages of the suggested proposal are as follows:
· All nursery children would have been admitted to maintained settings and therefore local communication of the closing date would be more easily communicated. This would allow schools to follow up individual families where applications had not been made before the closing date, including those children admitted in January.
· Families would feel more ownership and empowerment to embrace the primary admissions process, without feeling they had only just completed the nursery application process.
· In areas where there is typically multiple cross border applications for specific primary schools, for example for Jewish schools, there would be better management of these multiple applications, alleviating the potential for multiple offers and therefore supporting solutions to emerging hotspot issues.
· Appeals for primary places would most likely take place later and consequently there could be a reduction in the number of appeal hearings as more pupils will have been successful in gaining places at Continuing Interest.
7.4 The suggested proposal would require a revised timetable for appeals. To ensure all primary appeals are heard by the end of the summer term, the last date for receipt of primary appeals would be 4 June. This would mean that the majority of secondary appeals would be heard before commencing the primary appeals.
8. Proposal 4: Allocating reception places to twins and multiple births – amendment to primary admission arrangements
8.1 A number of activities have taken place since meeting with The Twins and Multiple Births Association (TAMBA) earlier this year. This has included improvements in the information published about how the Rule 2 process works and examples of cases which are agreed and declined,
together with guidance for families with twins or multiple births about the
admissions application process. The latter information is now available on the website.
8.2 It is proposed therefore, that where key stage one prejudice exists, that there would be an exception to the over-subscription criteria for community primary schools, which would read as follows:
Note: where the last child to be admitted would result in twins/multiple births being split, these children would be allocated, and the penultimate
ranked child, in the case of twins, or group of children, in the case of multiple births not allocated. This arrangement would only apply at initial allocation day and the displaced child/children would be prioritised at the top of the waiting list, with the exception of a late application for a statemented child or a late child looked-after.
9. Proposal 5: Tightening the definition of Rule 4 for community secondary co-educational schools
9.1 The current wording of Rule 4 is “Children who live in the priority area and for whom it is their nearest Hertfordshire maintained non-faith, co-educational school”.
9.2 It is suggested this definition is changed to:
“Children who live in the priority area and for whom it is their nearest Hertfordshire maintained non-faith, co-educational, non-partially selective school. Note: Non-partially selective means that the school does not offer any places based on academic ability.”
9.3 Such a change to the definition is unlikely to improve the overall satisfaction rate in Hertfordshire, but the definition would be fairer to families with the definition being clearer and more transparent to parents. It could be argued that the current definition is inequitable, because it is disadvantageous to those families who have a closer partially selective school, even though their children may well not meet the over-subscription criteria for the partially selective schools (ability). By offering greater clarity to parents, they would be able to make more informed decisions when applying for school places for their children. Such a change would support admissions advice to parents whose children are not going to meet the oversubscription rules at the partially selective schools. In turn it would remove this element of parents’ submissions at appeals for these schools.
9.4 In looking generally at the impact of such a change, it would mean a higher
number of families would qualify for a place under Rule 4. Based on the 2008 secondary cohort, 891 applicants had one of the partially selective schools (selecting by ability) as their nearest school and would therefore not have been considered under our current definition nearest non-faith maintained co-educational school.
This is broken down as follows:
Name / Number of applicants for whom the school is their nearestDame Alice Owen's / 109
Parmiter's / 90
Queens' / 231
Rickmansworth / 317
St Clement Danes / 144
Total / 891
10. Proposed changes to secondary local arrangements
Evaluation of the effectiveness of the secondary admission arrangements shows the following overall level of satisfaction as at the end of the process:
Secondary 2008 as at post Continuing Interest 8 (17 July 2008)
District of Pupil Residence / Number of applicants / Number of NRAs / Satisfaction RateBroxbourne / 1149 / 29 / 97.48%
Dacorum / 1622 / 30 / 98.15%
East Herts / 1549 / 17 / 98.90%
Hertsmere / 1107 / 37 / 96.66%
North Herts / 1437 / 21 / 98.54%
St Albans / 1638 / 17 / 98.96%
Stevenage / 983 / 6 / 99.39%
Three Rivers / 988 / 64 / 93.52%
Watford / 1027 / 107 / 89.58%
Welwyn Hatfield / 1083 / 13 / 98.80%
TOTAL / 12583 / 341 / 97.29%
10.1 During the summer, meetings took place with representatives from:
Wheathampstead: With St Albans District Council Chief Executive and the local district councillor together with several Wheathampstead stakeholders, concerning the local situation. Work has taken place to consider each of the suggestions submitted by these stakeholders and the outcome of this is summarized in Appendix 3 to this report.
10.2 It is acknowledged that families from this area do gain places at schools of preference and that this satisfaction is typically achieved after national allocation day, 1 March or nearest subsequent working day. By 18 July this year, the success rate for families in the St Albans City and District (which includes Wheathampstead) gaining one of their preferences was 99%, compared with the overall county figure of 97%.