Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Strategic Director of Children, Families and Adults.

Barbara Dale, School Admissions and Organisation Manager, attended to present a draft Decision Paper which outlined the outcome of the statutory consultation undertaken during the Sprint Term 2012 on the Council’s proposed admission arrangements and co-ordinated admission scheme for 2013. She explained that the paper sought Cabinet approval to determine these arrangements prior to the 15 April 2012. The Committee was asked to consider the paper and offer advice to officers regarding the proposed changes and procedures implemented.

Attention was drawn to point 10.7 in the draft decision paper which described how several comments received during the consultation had requested that a number of successful schools be allowed to grow their pupil admission number (PAN) in order to meet demand and foster parental choice. Barbara explained that the Council had a responsibility to manage such requests carefully as expanding capacity could have significant knock on effects on the viability of other nearby schools.

A discussion was had as to whether this was the policy that the Council should be implementing. It was asserted that the Council should not be giving priority to keeping open schools and rather be rewarding good performing schools with more places. In response to this, a number of comments were made which argued that the Council had a responsibility to improve the standards of all schools and take a long term view of placement strategy. Indeed, it was stated that a system that responded to the preferences of a particular set of parents at a particular year could be unworkable as communities could lose their local school. It was also noted that increasing school capacity could bring with it traffic congestion issues.

The Chair asserted that a difficult policy balance needed to be sought – one which firstly addressed the issue of parental choice and secondly made sure that local communities were served by improving the standards of all schools.

It was queried whether there were any examples of children who had to travel a significant distance as they could not access a local school. Barbara Dale explained that if this happened the Council would look at school placement allocation in order to try and get all children attending a school within a ‘reasonable’ distance from their home. ‘Reasonable’ in this context might be 2 miles for a primary school child and 3 miles for a secondary school pupil, although this could not be guaranteed. In all cases, arrangements would be administered fairly for all families. She also described how the Council occasionally used some of the held back dedicated schools grant money to supplement any staffing issues arising from further admissions.

RESOLVED – That the report be received.