Draft Schools Admissions Code: An expert's view

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Following consultation, the Schools Admissions Code will be issued under provisions of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and, as hitherto, imposes mandatory requirements and provides guidelines to all those with a statutory interest in school admissions. The Admissions Code is neither  a ‘Code of Practice’ nor ‘statutory guidance’ to which those concerned have to have regard. Rather, it is a statement of what must and must not be done with respect to school admissions.

Comment These provisions are not new, though the clear restatement is helpful, as urban myths continue to circulate of parents being told (by local authorities and by schools) that the Admissions Code is not mandatory but is simply ‘good practice’.


Academies are required to comply with the Admissions Code not through the requirements of the 1998 Act but through their funding agreement with the Secretary of State. However, the Secretary of State can vary this requirement "where there is a demonstrable need".

Comment It is not stated on what basis the Secretary of State will decide whether there is ‘demonstrable need’ but it is likely that he will have to assess this against the general requirements of the Code – fairness, clarity and objectivity – any other approach would be subject to challenge.

As the numbers of academies is increasing rapidly, there will be more and more academies responsible for managing school admission against the requirements of the Admissions Code but with little or no relevant experience of what is, inevitably, a complex area of educational administration.


Local authorities have to publish an annual report by 30 June on school admissions in their area. There are minimum requirements for these reports – they must include information about children in care, with disabilities, and with special educational needs; an assessment of the effectiveness of local Fair Access Protocols, complaints and appeals.

Comment Local authorities are free to extend these reports as they see appropriate, in order to assess the overall impact of school admissions policies, as part of their community accountability role as champions for children. (The white paper The Importance of Teaching gives one of the key roles of local authorities is that they should: "Use their democratic mandate to stand up for the interests of parents and children".)


There are five different types of schools – academy, community, foundation, voluntary aided, and voluntary controlled – with three possible variations on the admissions authority and the agency responsible for appeals – the local authority, the academy trust, or the governing body.

Comment This is likely to continue to cause substantial confusion to parents making multiple applications. At the least, there should be effective local coordination of information to parents, and also of appeals processes.


The key principle governing admissions arrangements is that they must be fair, clear and objective – parents should be able to understand easily how places for a school will be allocated.

Comment While the Admissions Code has been simplified, parents will still be faced with making preferences for schools and academies all of which may have significantly different over-subscription criteria and different definitions of terms (such as ‘sibling’, ‘distance to school’ – see below). This has proved very difficult to explain to parents when their preferences are not met, leading to widespread concern that the overall system is not fair. And while ‘clarity’ and ‘objectivity’ can be reasonably assessed, ‘fairness’ (while desirable) is very difficult to define. Parents unhappy with admission arrangements are likely to complain that whatever definition has been adopted is not fair – in that it discriminates against them. It would be helpful if the Admissions Code provided standardised definitions.


Admissions arrangements for every school must be published every year, with a specified consultation whenever there is a change or every seven years if there are no changes.

Comment Good practice, and avoidance of confusion with a plethora of admissions authorities, would indicate that all schools ought to consult on their admissions arrangements every year, and that this consultation should be locally coordinated, not through individual schools publishing their own documentation. Coordinated local coordination would also result in efficiency improvement and cost savings.


Admissions arrangements can be objected to during consultation, or after they have been determined, in which case objections are referred to the Schools Adjudicator who may impose mandatory changes to admissions arrangements where the published admissions arrangements do not meet the requirements of the Admissions Code. Each local authority then collates and publishes all the admissions arrangements in a single composite prospectus.

Comment Since the local authority has to publish the composite prospectus, it makes sense for the local authority also to coordinate the consultation process on the same basis.


Parents are able to express a preference for at least three schools, which may be in or out of the local authority area. When a school is undersubscribed, it must admit all applicants; where it is oversubscribed, its admissions authority must rank applications in order against its oversubscription criteria and send that list back to the local authority.

Comment It is not clear at this point what happens when none of the schools on the preferred list can admit the child when their individual oversubscription criteria are applied.


Parents have the right to appeal against a decision to refuse admission of their child to a school; the admissions authority must set out its reasons for its decision and the process for hearing appeals, which must be based on an independent appeals panel.

Comment Since some parents may be in a position of appealing the refusal to admit their child by several schools, there would be benefit in coordination of appeals processes and hearings. The local authority is best placed to carry out such coordination. Without such coordination, an appeal for the second preference school (School A) might be successful before the appeal for the first preference school (School B) is heard; if the appeal for School B is then successful the parent will not then take up the offered place at School A, leading to potential distortions.


PLANNED ADMISSION NUMBERS

The admissions authority for every school must set a Published Admission Number (PAN) set with regard to the net capacity assessment of the school. Admissions authorities must consult if they intended to increase the PAN. Where there is an objection to an increase in PAN the School Adjudicator will have a strong presumption in favour of the increase unless there is a clear threat to pupil safety.

Comment The implication is that any school that wishes to expand, and has sufficient teaching space capacity to do so, will be able to admit more pupils year-on-year by increasing its PAN. Of course, schools will need to consider the effect of the increased PAN over a period of several years, because as the larger year groups go through the school, the total roll will increase, assuming that the school is oversubscribed and admits up to PAN.

Since most PANs are already set to match physical capacity, this provision may have a limited effect in the short term; the most obvious impact would be increased class sizes unless the school has empty classrooms. There is, however, likely to be a parallel policy of allowing oversubscribed schools that wish to expand to have access to capital funding to enable them to increase their capacity; this will have a longer-term effect.

The implication for local authorities is that attempts to manage falling rolls in an area in order to maintain a stock of viable schools may be defeated, with the implication that school closure programmes may need to be accelerated, with the closure of unpopular schools. How the local authority planning function will be exercised in an environment in which all, or almost all, schools are autonomous has yet to be answered, though there will be a need for such a function to deal, in particular, with falling rolls.


OVERSUBSCIPTION CRITERIA

Oversubscription criteria must be reasonable, clear, objective, procedurally fair, and comply with equalities legislation. In particular, admissions authorities must ensure that their arrangements do not disadvantage unfairly a child from any social or racial group, with a disability, or with special educational needs, or children whose parents might be discouraged from application by school policies on school uniform or school trips. Children in council care must be given highest priority, and all children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs must be admitted.

Comment This is largely a helpful restatement of the previous policy, highlighting specific areas where complaints have been upheld in the past, namely the effects of school policies that require parental expenditure.

Local authorities must give clear and careful consideration to which school children in care are directed, and should encourage children themselves to express a view, giving them the opportunity to visit schools as would be encouraged for other parents and children. Local authorities should not move children between schools when their social care placement changes unless there is an over-riding reason to do so, as schools can provide important stability in a child’s life.

A list of prohibited practices is set out:

• Considering anything not in the oversubscription criteria; 
• Considering of previous schools, unless a feeder school system is used;
• Giving extra priority on preference rankings, including ‘first preference first’;
• Basing any new selection by ability
• Giving priority to parents who provide support to the school or an associated organisation, such as a church
• Giving priority to children according to the status of their parents (see note in comment);
• Taking account of reports from previous schools about the child’s past, or that of their siblings; 
• Discriminating against disabled children or children with special education needs;
• Prioritising children on the basis of their or their parents’ activities (subject to designated faith schools being able to take account of religious activities);
• For designated grammar schools, giving priority to siblings of current or former pupils;
• In the case of state boarding schools, ranking applicants on the basis of a child’s suitability for boarding;
• Naming independent fee-paying schools as feeder schools;
• Interviewing children or parents;
• Requesting financial contributions in any form;
• Requesting photographs of children

Comment Again, this is largely a helpful restatement of the previous policy, highlighting specific areas where complaints have been upheld in the past. The exception relating to parents’ status concerns school staff – see below.


The draft Admissions Code does not give a list of acceptable oversubscription criteria, leaving individual admissions authorities to decide their arrangements based on local circumstances. However, the draft Code does highlight areas where admissions authorities need to be explicit.

Comment The draft Admissions Code leaves open the possibility, even the likelihood, that without local coordination, different admissions authorities in an area will adopt inconsistent and possibly conflicting oversubscription criteria, and that definitions of terms will vary between admissions authorities. This is likely to continue to cause substantial confusion to parents making multiple applications. At the least, there should be effective local coordination of local oversubscription criteria, with a mechanism whereby the Schools Adjudicator can deal with local inconsistency.


Admissions authorities will be required to define their meaning for the following terms:

Siblings Step siblings, foster siblings, adopted siblings, other children living at the address; siblings who are former pupils of the school.

Comment With complex family relationships, in practice this is an area of considerable complexity. Adopted siblings should of course be treated as full siblings. Fostered children are in the care of a local authority, so need not be defined here as they already have automatic right of admission. It would have been desirable for the Code to specify a definition of ‘sibling’.


Distance from the school Defining the starting point and end point of measurements; how the home address will be determined, dealing with shared residence.

Comment Again this is an area of considerable complexity in practice. From where in the family home is distance measured? From where on the school site is distance measured? Is distance measured ‘as the crow flies’ or by a safe practicable walking route? What about the effects of natural geographical barriers – railways, major roads, canals and other waterways? In some cases, distances need to be measured within 1 metre to ensure fairness. As the degree of oversubscription changes from year to year, the limiting distance will also change; this in turn leads to parental confusion when, for example, a child is admitted in one year, and a neighbour’s child is not admitted in the next year.


Catchment areas Must be reasonable and clearly defined.

Comment One of the distortions about which complaints have been upheld is the design of catchment areas to exclude or include particular areas or estates without good reason.


Feeder schools Naming a feeder school must be done on reasonable grounds.

Comment Again, complaints have been upheld about naming a feeder school such that particular areas or estates are excluded without good reason.


Social and medical need Must be defined with acceptable evidence.


Selection by ability or aptitude Only designated grammar schools are permitted to select their entire intake on the basis of high academic ability. Some schools are partially selective. Schools that have arrangements to select by aptitude can select up to 10 per cent of the intake on one of four specialisms.

Comment Where there are several grammar schools in an area, it would be desirable for them all to use the same tests in the same way; at present some parents are required to enter their children for several tests on different occasions, thus causing unnecessary stress.

There is no particularly good evidence that ‘aptitude’ is easily or reliably measured; or that it depends on innate factors in the child and not prior experience (such as sports training or music education).


Banding Pupil ability banding is permitted to ensure that a school intake includes a proportionate spread of children of different abilities. The draft Admissions Code sets out a number of rules and acceptable procedures.

Comment Where there are several schools in an area using fair banding, it would be desirable for them all to use the same tests in the same way; at present some parents are required to enter their children for several tests on different occasions, thus causing unnecessary stress.


Random allocation Local authorities are prohibited from using random allocation, though other admissions authorities are able to use this system.

Comment It is not clear why local authorities should not use random allocation if it acceptable for other admissions authorities.


Faith-based oversubscription criteria in schools with a religious character Faith schools must have regard to any guidance from the relevant faith provider group or religious authority.

Comment Faith-based criteria have caused major problems in the past and it is unhelpful to leave the advice only to the ‘faith-based provider group’ (whatever that is) or religious authority. Some admissions authorities, particularly those with their own religious foundations, do not readily accept external religious authority.


Children of staff at the school This is a new possible oversubscription criterion. The draft Admissions Code requires that if admissions authorities use this criterion they must clearly define ‘staff’ and the basis for prioritisation

Comment Great care will be needed in defining this criterion in order to avoid ambiguity; again it would have been desirable for the draft Code to define the term.

Maintained boarding schools Maintained boarding schools can set separate PANs for ‘day’ and boarding’ pupils. Children can be interviewed for boarding admissions but only to consider whether they would present a serious health and safety hazard or would be able to cope with and benefit from a boarding environment. Boarding schools must give priority to children of members of the UK Armed Forces who qualify for Ministry of Defence financial support.
 
Comment There is no mention of boarding academies; maintained boarding schools are all maintained by local authorities. The prioritisation of children of members of the UK Armed Forces is sensible, provided that the definition of those who qualify for Ministry of Defence financial support is itself workable and fair. What happens, for example, if a member of the Armed Forces leaves while their child is at boarding school? And what happens if, tragically, the member of the Armed Forces is killed while on active duty? In these cases the pupil will remain on the roll of the boarding school, but it is not clear who will continue to pay the boarding fees. In these cases, the Ministry of Defence should accept the cost up to the normal school-leaving age.


CONCLUDING COMMENT

While the draft Admissions Code is very much shorter than the existing Code, a very great deal is left to individual admissions authorities. Since the number of admissions authorities is increasing rapidly as a consequence of the academies programme, there is likely to be much wider variation in admissions arrangements than hitherto. In order to meet the stated aims of the Draft Admissions Code – fairness, clarity and objectivity – it would be very desirable to minimise undue variation by standardising definition of terms, and ensuing that there is local coordination of arrangements, so that parents can genuinely understand the system and the basis of decision-making.

Suppose, for example, that there are four nearby oversubscribed academies; one uses distance ‘as the crow flies’, the other a catchment area, the third, fair banding, and the fourth, random allocation. Or consider a case in which several nearby schools use different definitions for siblings. All these would be individually acceptable but the resulting confusion would be substantial, causing  justified concerns among parents about the fairness of the system.

John Freeman CBE is a former director of children’s services and now works as a freelance consultant