Consultation on removal of the ‘linked schools’ criterion for admission to Grey Court, Orleans Park and Teddington

• [Nov 15]: Richmond Council writes: ' . . 2: BACKGROUND: . . 2.3 The 'linked school' criterion has been in place since 1991, when it was introduced as a way of mitigating the effects of the 'Greenwich Judgement', which ruled that it was unlawful for a local authority to give priority in a school's oversubscription criteria solely on the basis of a child's residence within the authority's administrative area. In other words, whilst it was - and remains - lawful to use 'home to school distance' as a criterion, applicants from outside the authority's area should otherwise be considered for admission no less favourably than children living within the area.

The 'linked school' criterion was felt to be a lawful way to encourage a fair degree of stability in the borough's admission patterns and to ensure that a large number of Year 6 pupils would reap the benefits of educational continuity by transferring with their peers.

2.4 The 'linked school' criterion has been oversubscribed with applicants for Teddington since 2004 and for Orleans Park since 2005. In each year of that oversubscription, 'home to school distance' has been used as a sub-criterion to determine which linked children should be offered places. As such, the links from some schools - particularly from Stanley and Trafalgar to Teddington - do not ensure the continuity that had been guaranteed in previous years. It should be noted, though, that, by contrast, all children, attending linked schools or not, whose parents preferred Grey Court have been admitted in each year since the 1990s.

. . 4: Why is the proposal being made?

4.1 At its meeting on 9 February 2011, Richmond upon Thames Admissions Forum felt that the circumstances were such that it was time to review the 'linked schools policy' (LSP), having not commissioned such a review since 2006. The Forum is a cross-party and borough wide body that is designed to consider the fairness and legality of admission arrangements for local schools. It includes representation from both the London Borough of Hounslow and the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

4.2 On 21 September 2011, the Forum considered a report on the LSP and achieved consensus to recommend to the local authority that it should consult upon removing the 'linked school' criterion for September 2013 entry. In coming to that view, the Forum noted that:

- Using 'home to school distance' as the principal criterion would be more straightforward and easier for parents to understand, in accordance with the underlying principles of the Schools Admissions Code.

- Basing children's chances of admission on preferences made by the parents of previous Year 6 children is unfair.

- Although the criterion enables a degree of continuity for cohorts of children transferring from a good number of the linked schools, the original purpose of the LSP - to guarantee that children from particular primary schools could obtain places at particular secondary schools - no longer pertains, as not all 'linked school' children are able to obtain places at Orleans Park or Teddington.

- Regardless of which primary school they attend, children should stand a realistic chance of being admitted to their closest mixed community secondary school.

- 10 (29 %) of the 35 junior and primary schools in the borough do not have a linked secondary school.

- Modelling of how the 2011 intakes would have looked had the LSP not been in place indicated that a net total of 33 [more] in-borough children - 29 more for Orleans Park, 16 more for Teddington, but 12 fewer for Grey Court - would have obtained places at the three schools; albeit that parents may have made different preferences, or ranked them differently, and that some parents whose children did not attend linked primary schools and who therefore hadn't applied may have done so, had 'distance' been the main criterion.

- The LSP can make parents whose children attend linked primary schools feel that places at the linked secondary are guaranteed,which can make it difficult for them to accept subsequent refusal and places that are allocated at the academies.

- All three mixed community schools were consulting on converting to academy status and would, if they became academies, be ableto set their own admissions arrangements for 2014/2015 onwards; so this could be the last opportunity for the local authority to propose a coordinated abolition of the LSP - albeit that it was highly probable that the schools would continue to set their admission arrangements in close consultation and cooperation with the local authority.

- Removing the criterion could lead to a more natural geographical distribution of the borough's children at entry to Year 7.

- Whether the LSP were to be in place or not, there would be 'winners' and losers' and not all parents could be satisfied until all the secondary schools and academies in the borough were graded by Ofsted, and in parents' eyes, as 'good' or 'outstanding'.

4.3 The local authority is unable simply to remove the out-borough linked primary schools and leave only in-borough schools linked, as the Schools Adjudicator has previously ruled (in 2004) against Camden Council making a similar proposal . . '

Start date: 15 November 2011

End date: 13 January 2012

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