Archived decisions

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Decision Report :

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1) Summary of Decision Area:

1.1. The Executive Lead Member for Children's Services (Education) must, on behalf of the County Council, determine the admission arrangements for the main admission round for children starting a new phase in September 2010. This decision must be taken before 15 April 2009.

2) Issues Covered in Report:

2.1. The statutory framework around determining school admission arrangements, including the recent changes to legislation.

2.2. The consultation on the primary policy and the removal of the same site condition for siblings attending linked infant/junior schools.

3) Recommendations:

3.1. That the Executive Lead Member for Children's Services (Education) approve the adoption of:

· the revised admission policies for community and voluntary controlled schools set out in Annexes A and B and for Nursery Units attached to maintained schools set out in Annexe C;

· the schemes for co-ordinating primary and secondary admissions, set out in Annexes D, E and F;

· the published admission numbers (PANs) for community and voluntary controlled schools set out in Annexes G and H;

· the school specific criteria listed in Annexe I;

· the boarding policy listed in Annexe J.

3.2. That the Director of Children's Services, having regard to any advice from the Admission Forum, be empowered to:

· authorise the publication of local notices in those instances where there is agreement with governors of community and voluntary controlled schools that a PAN lower than the indicated admission number, arising from the capacity assessment, should be published; in accordance with legislation.

· lodge an objection to the Schools Adjudicator in respect of any aspect of an admission authority school's or neighbouring LA's admission arrangements which appear to be at variance with legal requirements or the School Admissions Code's advice, taking into account factors at the school, the possible effect on admissions to other schools and the outcome of further consultations, if any.

· Amend the list of school specific criteria as appropriate during the course of the academic year; in consultation with the Executive Lead Member for Children's Services (Education).

MAIN REPORT

1) Purpose of the Report:

1.1. To inform the Executive Lead Member on the consultation carried out, following advice from Hampshire's Admissions Forum, with schools regarding the admission arrangements for September 2010.

2) Background:

2.1. The County Council is the admission authority for all community and voluntary controlled schools within Hampshire and is therefore responsible for determining the admission arrangements for these schools. Regulations require all admission authorities (i.e. LAs and the governing bodies of voluntary aided and foundation schools, referred to in this report as "admission authority schools") to determine their school admission arrangements for 2010/11 by 15 April 2009 and to have notified other admission authorities within 14 days of this date at the latest. Also a public notice must be placed in newspapers before 1 May.

2.2. The admission arrangements are defined as covering: `Admission arrangements' means the overall procedure, practices, criteria and supplementary information to be used in deciding on the allocation of school places and refers to any device or means used to determine whether a school place is to be offered'.

2.3. The School Admissions Code (2007), first imposed changes on admissions for September 2008. That Code was the first to have a statutory basis and impose mandatory requirements. On 4 December 2008 the revised School Admissions Code and School Admission Appeals Code were presented to Parliament.

2.4. The annual consultation on admission arrangements for September 2010 was carried out informally during the autumn term 2008 in the expectation that the revised Code was due. The revised Code clarified that the 2010 arrangements must comply with the 2007 Code, although an extra requirement to consult with parents on those arrangements was enforced. The main focus of Hampshire County Council's consultation was on one aspect of the primary policy where it was proposed to remove the existing `same site' condition in the sibling criteria, i.e. the condition whereby sibling status can be claimed in an application for a school place on the basis of a sibling at a linked infant/junior school only if the schools are on the same site.

2.5. There are many other effects of the revised Codes, some influencing policy, others having a direct bearing on the practices of handling applications. In particular, for the main admission rounds for 2010 the local authority will NOT be able to require parents to directly approach schools for a school place between offer dates (in January and March) and the date when children start in school in September. Also the authority must run the waiting lists for community and voluntary controlled schools.

2.6. There are further changes which are brought into effect immediately. Also the authority must formulate a scheme, by January 2010, for co-ordinating in-year admissions from September 2010.

2.7. Consultations with schools, neighbouring local authorities and parents for 2010 admissions have been carried out in three phases:

· October - November 2008: consultations on published admission numbers (PANs);

· October - November 2008: informal consultations on proposed co-ordination schemes and admission policies, with reference to particular aspects of the policies;

· January -March 2008: statutory consultation on intended arrangements, following the publication of a notice in newspapers covering Hampshire's administrative area. Details available in the consultation documents include revised PANs and any revisions approved by Forum in response to the autumn term consultations.

2.8. Particular attention has been paid to the consultations on PANs in order to find a proper balance between the effective management of school places and the successful expression of parental preference. The reduction in numbers of primary aged pupils in most areas of the county is having a particular impact on primary admission numbers.

2.9. The results of the informal consultation were considered by the Admission Forum at its meeting on 10 December 2008. The statutory consultation responses were considered at its 5 March 2009 meeting. The Forum must act in accordance with all relevant legislation. The County Council has a statutory duty to "have regard" to the recommendations of the Forum. The Forum includes county councillors, parent governors, headteachers, the Church of England and Roman Catholic dioceses, the armed forces, special educational needs, ethnic minorities, early years and neighbouring LAs. The Forum is advised by LA officers, one of whom acts as secretary.

3) Outline of Proposals being Consulted Upon:

3.1. That the Executive Lead Member approve the proposed admission arrangements for the admissions round for applying for a new school, in September 2010. The admission arrangement have gone through the approved consultation process and have been recommended by Hampshire's Admissions Forum.

4) Consultation details: Primary Policy

4.1. In the Autumn term schools were asked to comment on the extension of sibling status in the primary policy to include siblings at all linked infant/junior schools, i.e. the removal of the existing `same site' condition in the sibling criteria whereby sibling status can be claimed on the basis of a sibling at a linked infant/junior school only if the schools are on the same site.

4.2. The authority received 84 responses from schools; 83 schools agreed with the proposed change to the Primary school policy, 1 school said they disagreed with the proposal.

4.3. Hampshire's Admissions Forum, at its 10 December meeting approved a consultation, during the statutory spring term period, on introducing the proposed change. No further comments were received.

5) Schemes for co-ordinated admissions:

5.1. The county admissions team co-ordinated both primary and secondary admissions throughout the county for the fourth time in 2009; for the second time the whole process was centralised. The central admissions team handled just under 34,000 applications for 2009 the overall first preference `success rate' declined. The number of children allocated a place (because none of their parents' preferences were successful) increased.

5.2. Previous legislation prescribing the co-ordinated process did not adequately clarify responsibilities between the date that parents received offer letters and children starting in school in September. In Hampshire, community and controlled schools, as well as voluntary aided and foundation schools have taken over the application process shortly after offer letters have been sent. The new legislation makes it clear that parents must approach the authority, rather than schools, for places in the particular post offer-pre September window and therefore the authority must maintain the waiting lists for oversubscribed community and voluntary controlled schools.

5.3. Hampshire's co-ordinated scheme has been updated to reflect this expectation.

6) Published Admission Numbers (PANs) for primary and secondary schools:

6.1. Every year, the LA must publish in its composite prospectus the number of pupils who will be admitted to each school. This is known as the published admission number (PAN). The LA consults annually governing bodies of community and voluntary controlled schools on the proposed PAN for their school. Admission authority schools are responsible for setting their own PAN, after consultations. If a school has specialist resourced SEN provision, the pupils to be admitted to this provision are usually included within the PAN.

6.2. The governors of community and voluntary controlled schools have the power to object to the independent Schools Adjudicator if they consider that the PAN proposed by the LA is not appropriate for their school.

6.3. Schools may seek a PAN lower than that indicated by the capacity of the school. For example, an infant school will wish to reduce an indicated PAN of 31 to 30 to comply with class size legislation. Similarly, a secondary school might wish to reduce the indicated PAN to coincide with an even pattern of tutor group organisation. If an admission authority seeks to reduce the indicated PAN, it is necessary to publish notices and the Schools Adjudicator must consider objections if these are received from at least ten parents. The LA publishes notices on behalf of community and voluntary controlled schools; for foundation and voluntary aided schools, the governors have this responsibility. Significant changes to the Published Admission Number usually require an adjustment to the school's capacity.

6.4. The Admission Forum considered all PANs, that were changing from the 2009 figure, at its meeting on 6 March. The enclosed tables for both primary (Annexe F) and secondary (Annexe G) schools give details of the PAN for 2009, the school capacity, the indicated PAN and the proposed PAN for 2010 (i.e. DfES latest capacity figures).

6.5. As in previous years, it is recommended that for 2009/10 admissions the Director of Children's Services, and having regard to any advice from the Admission Forum, be empowered to:

· authorise the publication of local notices in those instances where there is agreement with governors of community and voluntary controlled schools that a PAN lower than the indicate admission number arising from the capacity assessment should be published, in accordance with legislation; and

· lodge an objection to the Schools Adjudicator in respect of any aspect of an admission authority school's or neighbouring LA's admissions arrangements (including PANs) which appear to be at variance with legal requirements or Code of Practice advice, taking into account factors at the school, the possible effect on admissions to other schools and the outcome of further consultations, if any.

7) School specific criteria:

7.1. The County Council's policy applies for admissions to all community and voluntary controlled schools within Hampshire. The Admission Forum has, in the past, recognised that there still might be cases where some flexibility is advisable in relation to individual school policies to avoid situations where a rigid implementation of the LA policy would lead to unacceptable anomalies. This is delivered through school specific criteria, which includes using walking route as the method for measuring the distance tiebreaker.

7.2. The need to centralize the administration of the main admissions round makes it more difficult to accommodate school specific criteria. Schools are advised that continuing to operate a school specific criterion may require them to directly support the processing of applications to their school.

7.3. Annexe H lists all proposed school specific criteria for 2009, supported by the Admission Forum. Proposed new criteria are given in italics. For 2010 admissions, these were considered by the Admission Forum.

7.4. The list given at Annexe H, therefore, is recommended with the support of the Admission Forum to the Executive Member for his agreement.

And one more

8) Boarding Policies:

8.1. Hampshire has provision for six boys and six girls to board each year. This is available at Kings' School (boys) and at The Westgate School (girls). The Code on Admissions gives specific guidance on the admission policy for admissions to boarding provision in mainstream schools.

9) Impact Issues:

The following issues have been identified as potential impact issues the County Council would need to be aware of if it were asked to implement the proposals in this paper:

9.1. No adverse impact in regard to race, culture, gender or disability arising from this report has been identified. However, to ensure that the admission arrangements do allow for the best interests of all children to be properly taken into account when applying the published policy an equality impact assessment is being undertaken.

10) Risk Issues:

The following have been identified as possible risk issues for the County Council to consider if it were asked to implement the proposals in this paper:

N/a

11) Conclusions:

11.1. Having followed the processes detailed above the various proposed constituents of Hampshire County Council's 2010 admission arrangements are recommended by Hampshire's Admissions Forum for determination by the Executive Lead Member for Children's Services (Education).

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works.

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

12) Summary Recommendations:

That the Executive Lead Member for Children's Services (Education) approve the adoption of the proposed admission arrangements.

CORPORATE OR LEGAL INFORMATION: