Admissions Forum Annual Report October 2008 Status: Agreed Report Wiltshire Admission Forum Annual Report October 2008 1. Introduction Section 85A(1A) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (as inserted by section 41(3) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006) provides admission forums with an important power to produce an annual report on school admissions. Regulation 4 of the Education (Admissions Forums) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2007 sets out what as a minimum must be included in such reports. This report is provided to satisfy these statutory requirements. 2. Scope The purpose of the report is to: • enable the Admission Forum to discharge its responsibility to ensure that admission arrangements and other school policies are fair and do not disadvantage either directly or indirectly a child from a particular social or racial group or a child with a disability or special educational needs. • help the Local Authority to exercise its statutory duty to promote fair access and to help it identify any local issues. • enable schools to comply with their fair access duty and to ensure that their admission arrangements are lawful and fair. The report will be forwarded to the School Commissioner to inform his report to Parliament on Fair Access. 3. Preferences met a. Secondary Intake for September 2008 The table at Appendix A indicates the number of preferences met for the intake year. The data includes only children who are the responsibility of Wiltshire CC i.e. those living within the county at the time of their application. Some of the listed schools take in children who are not Wiltshire residents. Once a preference has been met any further preferences are declined and so do not show up in the table. For instance, the second preferences met are for children who could not be offered their first preference school. Secondary applications are co-ordinated across local authority boundaries and the Admissions Forum is pleased to report that this system seems to be working well. As it becomes the “usual practice” parents seem to be happy with making their application to their home authority even though they may be applying for an out of county school. Overall 88.9% of first preferences were met with 96% of applicants receiving an offer at one of their preferred schools. Nine Wiltshire schools could not offer a place to everyone who named it as first preference. Of these nine, 2 are Grammar Schools, 3 are Foundation Schools, 2 are RC Aided schools and 2 are Community Schools. Appellants for Trafalgar School at Downton indicated their reason for applying for this school was that they were dissatisfied with the alternative provision in East Salisbury, particularly for boys. Parental perception is that currently there are limited realistic options available in Salisbury for those pupils not passing the 11+. Measures to improve the provision at Wyvern College are in place and WCC has expressed an interest in forming an academy at the Laverstock campus. The forum welcomes these moves. Two of the foundation schools were in Chippenham; the effect of the removing of the first preference first arrangement and the continued popularity of both Sheldon and Hardenhuish account for this. Both these schools give priority in their admission arrangements to children living or educated in rural villages around Chippenham and as a result many of those who were refused places lived within the urban area of Chippenham. The alternative of Abbeyfield is seen as geographically difficult to walk to from West Chippenham, although it is within limits for walking distance and many pupils do not qualify for transport. Both Chippenham and Salisbury areas accounted for the majority of enquiries from Parents received by the Choice Advice Service. Talks are continuing between WCC and the schools to discuss how more local children can be offered a preferred school. The forum welcomes and supports this move. The table at Appendix B indicates the number of Year 6 children from each primary school who were offered their first, second and third preference secondary school. It also shows the number of children who were allocated a place because none of their preferences could be met. This table is ordered so that the schools where children had most difficulty in getting their preferences are at the top. At the bottom of the table are the schools where all children were offered their first preference secondary school. Four of the eight schools at the top of the list are in Chippenham – again showing that children from Chippenham town were less likely to be offered their preferred secondary school. Lower down the table it can be seen that for many children, moving to secondary school is more straightforward, and from many schools the natural progression to the “local” secondary school means that in effect parents opt for a school which is the designated secondary school. b. Reception Intake The table at Appendix C indicates the number of preferences met for the intake year at primary and infant schools. The data includes only children who are the responsibility of Wiltshire CC i.e. those living within the county at the time of their application. Some of the listed schools take in children who are not Wiltshire residents. Once a preference has been met, any further preferences are declined and so do not show up in the table. For instance, the second preferences met are for children who could not be offered their first preference school. Primary applications are not (yet) co-ordinated across local authority boundaries. The Admission Forum is happy to report that co-ordination within Wiltshire is working well although it recognises the extra work that has been placed on individual admission authorities in the aided and foundation schools. In spite of this the principle of co-ordination, which helps parents, is fully supported by the Forum. Coordination and a common closing date for applications can also result in some difficulties in schools that have a lot of pupil movement after those dates, and this is especially so in some schools with a high “forces “element. Overall 93.4% of applicants were offered their first preference school and 97% of applicants were offered one of their three preferences. For many rural primary schools there is no reasonable alternative and places are offered to all in area children. The Forum recognises the pressure this can put on some small schools. The popularity of some schools is affected greatly by the results of the latest OfSTED report. Easton Royal is a small school with a PAN of 8. It had an excellent grading was only able to offer 68% of first preferences and out of area children were refused. There is no distinct pattern found when comparing VA&F schools with VC&C schools. Some schools in each status category cannot offer 100% of first preferences whilst the majority in all status groups do. c. Junior Intake Junior applications are not (yet) co-ordinated across local authority boundaries. The Admission Forum is happy to report that co-ordination within Wiltshire is working well although it recognises the extra work that has been placed on individual admission authorities in the aided and foundation schools. In spite of this the principle of co-ordination which helps parents is fully supported by the Forum. All parents who named a Junior school as their first preference were offered a place. The natural progression from the linked infant school works well for parents in this regard. Some parents chose not to send their children to the linked junior school once they had completed their time in an infant school. Again 100% were offered their first preference school in Wiltshire. The Admissions Forum is pleased to report that there is no evidence that parents are experiencing undue difficulties in understanding the application process. Those that may have any queries about the process are contacting, or being signposted to, the Choice Advice Service for advice and guidance prior to completing their application. 4. Online Applications The following table indicates the number of applications received online Sector Primary Secondary Number 2164 1745 Percentage 43% 34% This table gives results of the customer satisfaction report generated by the online system Category Very Clear Clear Unclear Very Unclear Number 1265 575 15 5 % 67.8% 30.8% 1.02% 0.27% The number of online applications has shown an increase on 2006. A total of 39% of applications from Wiltshire residents were received online in 2007 and in 2006 this figure was 25%. All those who reported the system as being very unclear were contacted and in over half the cases it was found that they had no complaint they wished to pursue. There is a high level of satisfaction with the system as reported by users. Improvements to the software have been undertaken by its suppliers for the system for 2009 intakes. The Forum will continue to receive reports as to how the online system is operating. There has been no reported saving of staff time in handling admissions online. Each application still has to be verified and authenticated, although there is a decrease in the time taken for inputting applications, overall there has been no time saved. 5. Appeals This table indicates the number of appeals lodged and heard for 2008 intake year groups and shows the number of successful appeals which were allowed. Lodged Settled Heard Allowed National Averages 68% 36% Primary Appeals VC&C Primary 105 15 67 21 Schools (64%) (31%) VA&F Primary 13 0 13 6 Schools (100%) (46%) National Averages ICS 60% 20% appeals VC&C Primary 55 8 38 3 Schools ICS (76%) (8%) VA&F Primary 0 0 0 0 Schools ICS National Averages 74% 36% Secondary Appeals VC&C secondary 49 6 41 11 schools (84%) (27%) VA&F secondary 158 34 95 61 schools (60%) (64%) There has been an increase in the number of appeals for Voluntary Controlled and Community Schools.