John_Fowler

As the writer of the letter to last Friday?s South London Press about Kingsdale?s admission arrangements (quoted by ?intexasatthe moment), I want to comment on recent posts. Because of the jobs I have had I know a lot about Southwark school organisation decisions taken 25 years ago but not five years ago, so I do not know why the decision was taken to have the two Harris Academies as single sex institutions. I last went though the secondary transfer process as a parent six years ago, and know the difficulties, agonies and grief that it causes. I do know something about admissions. It took the last Labour Government quite some time to get round to understanding the need to make admission to schools fairer and more objective, and that fairness needs to be reviewed continually as it will change with the demographic needs of the local population. The turning point was the Education and Inspection Act 2006 and the subsequent School Admissions Code. The legislation was strengthened further in 2008. A facet of the legislation is that change is left to local communities (through the local authority) and parents to argue for fairer admission arrangements. Examples of unfairness could be Charter?s prohibited walkways and Kingsdale selection arrangements. The School Admissions Code does not help in getting more school places in an area or whether existing places should be mixed or single sex. Incidentally, I have looked at the Harris Boys admissions arrangement and they are well set out. In spite of what Alec John Moore states, there is no priority for feeder schools. He may be mixing up sibling priority and distance, the former have a higher priority than the latter. Perhaps for a while these criteria need to be reversed. This will benefit a school which aims to serve its immediate locality. Making the admission arrangements for Kingsdale and Charter fairer may not help parents in SE22. Only LB Southwark will have a feel for this possibility as it holds detailed demographic information and, in the case of Kingsdale particularly, can get information from Lambeth, Lewisham and Croydon. Further information about challenging maintained school admission arrangements can be found at http://www.schoolsadjudicator.gov.uk/object.cfm. The current chief adjudicator (Ian Craig) has not resigned. He will remain in post until October to see through any objections to admission arrangements for the school year starting September 2012. He has decided not to seek a further three year appointment. He is assisted by a team of adjudicators who will remain in post. The Government has said that it wishes to revise the School Admissions Code, but has not yet brought out a revised draft, and any decisions on 2012 admission arrangements will almost certainly be based on the current (2010) code and taken while Ian is the Chief Adjudicator. The adjudicator can directly make changes to the admission arrangements of a maintained school (community, foundation and voluntary). Both Kingsdale and Charter are now Academies. The current arrangement is that objections go to the Secretary of State (although worth sending to the Chief Adjudicator and the current Academy funding body, the Young Person?s Learning Agency). The Secretary of State will then formally refer to the Adjudicator, but any adjudication will be for the Secretary of State. I am willing to help anyone who wants to object although like all parents my time is limited. I am on to the next phase: university applications. It comes sooner than you think!