Changes to school admissions and appeals

The DfE has recently published revised draft Codes for School Admissions and Appeals following a consultation on the proposals. The Codes and draft regulations will go before Parliament and are scheduled to come into force in February 2012, affecting the allocation of places for children starting school in September 2013.

The main proposed changes are:

·         giving adopted children who were previously in care the same, highest priority for places as looked-after children;

·         introducing a ‘national offer day’ for primary places, mirroring that for secondary offers.  It is proposed that the date for this will be 16 April each year, starting in 2014;

·         giving greater freedom to schools to increase the number of places they are able to offer to parents;

·         allowing schools to prioritise the children of staff employed there for two or more years, or who have been recruited to meet a school’s particular skills shortage;

·         allowing infant classes to exceed the statutory limit where the 31st child is a twin or from multiple births, or of armed forces personnel;

·         allowing academies to prioritise disadvantaged children who are eligible for the Pupil Premium;

·         allowing schools to take direct applications from parents in a new in-year admissions process to help reduce delays in finding a school place once term starts when a child moves to a new area;

·         banning councils from using area-wide ‘lotteries’ as the principal method of allocating places across a local authority area;

·         requiring admission authorities to consult on arrangements every seven years, rather than every three years, if no changes are proposed;

·         allowing anyone to object to admissions arrangements.  Currently only a very restricted list of people can do so.

Admissions appeals

The government is also proposing to simplify the appeals process, including giving parents longer to submit an appeal and overturning the current requirement that appeals may not be heard on the school’s premises.

The revised Admissions and Appeals Codes are much shorter.  All schools, including Academies and Free Schools are required to follow the Codes.  However, the revised Codes are intended to give schools more flexibility to determine how many pupils than can admit.  It will be interesting to see how many Academies avail themselves of the opportunity to use Free School Meals eligibility as an over-subscription criterion.

The full revised draft codes (together with the DfE’s analysis of and response to the consultation) can be found here.