Embargoed announcement by the county council:
Francis Bacon School was today removed from special measures following an inspection vist by OfSTED. The school is now satisafactory with some good features. A tremendous job has been done by the headteacher, staff and governors, with very good support from CSF, led by Kate Smith. The leadership by the governing body has been judged as outstanding – a notable achievement led by the Chair, Carole Connelly.
Chris White, newly appointed Leader of the Opposition on Hertfordshire Council, has used the first full council meeting since the election to challenge the Tories to take action on primary school places in St Albans.
He asked the new portfolio holder to move away from ‘consistency’ of school place planning on the grounds that the demography in Hertfordshire is itself not consistent. ‘You can’t use the same formulas for predicting school places in Buntingford as you can in St Albans.’
He also demanded far more dialogue with local members and a renewed commitment to a new primary school.
Notes of meeting with county council officials. The emboldened questions have been raised by parents. The ordinary font answers underneath are from officials. I checked the text withthem before publishing and forwarding.
1. Sibling rule: General agreement that this rule should not apply to those who move out of the priority area.
Find out what the consequences of the sibling rule are: would we be having this meeting if this rule had been amended?
Officials agree with this for secondary but not for primary (could be very unpopular for primary schools). But they are modelling both. So this could go to consultation. Not seen as having a huge impact anyway.
2. Could we have a swaps system for people with unsatisfactory choices?
This was raised by the Head of Sandringham. It would, however, be a direct breach of the admissions code. Officials see parents’ logic but it can’t be done.
3. Are the single sex school allocations fair given that it’s local school for so many. Perhaps we should recognise that single sex schools are more a regional resource?
3.81% of places in Herts are now being done through random allocation so that is being used for single sex schools. The system does recognise the fact that they are both local and regional schools.
Is work being done to balance up the places for boys and girls? No. CW pointed out that there were two girls’ schools and only one boys’ in St Albans.
4. ‘Sex discrimination’:The Fleetville school problem needs to be examined.
This is because of the relative popularity of Verulam and STAGS: this is now addressed by the appointment of a new Head for Verulam.
5. Priority on continuing interest list: surely those with no choice should have priority.
This would be a breach of the schools admissions code.
6. What can we do for our children now?
– increasing allocations in existing schools: CW to write to John Harris and to the Heads
Response to CW’s letter is with planning colleagues.
7. Jubilee Centre as a temporary solution to primary school place shortage
Another site is actively being looked at.
8. Continuing interest list: Is there a cut off point? Why not ask those who have got a place whether they will take the place?
With community schools, parents are given two weeks to accept an offer and to be in first run of continuing interest (allowed to change preferences at this stage). Four weeks: reallocation in accordance with admissions rules. This carries on to July-August. Then there is a roll-over in which it turns into an in-year waiting list for year 7. A letter will be sent out every term until end of Year 10.
Where do people coming in from outside fit into this system? This seems to knock people down the list?
Yes: this does happen. You have to use the admissions rules and this is a consequence.
Should people be allowed to change the continuing interest list in the light of their experience?
The ability to change your preference is considered a late application and cannot be disadvantaged for so doing under the law.
9. Colney Heath: Journey to Onslow St Audrey – dangerous route but technically okay per county rules. This needs to be examined.
This does come up every year: the route involves underpasses but is regarded as safe. It is therefore a route for admissions purposes.
10. Administration of the system:
– routes should be publicly available and challengeable
Yes: but not prior to allocation day. HCC would have liked to have provided them, but can’t because of IT problems in displaying the relevant data externally. CW to follow this up with John Harris. HCC consulting on moving to straightline distances which would allow greater transparency. Vast majority of authorities have moved to straight line distances. 2011 would be the earliest point of change.
– will the safety of the routes be taken into account?
– not for admissions but it is for transport: in fact the routes are calculated on the basis that you walk down the middle of the road which is why there is strong case for change to straight line distances.
– why is there a lack of transparency?
See above.
I now have a date for a meeting which will take up the issues that parents have raised with me both in private and in public. The meeting will be between me and key county council officials.
These include:
– the efficiency of the administration of the school places allocation system
– anomalies over distances
– the operation of the continuing interest list, and particularly whether those who have received one of their ranked schools should be treated the same way as a parent who has received none
– whether there could be a swap shop so that parents who genuinely wanted to swap a school place with another could do so easily
– the operation of the siblings rule where people have moved out of an area.
This is not a comprehensive list.
And yes: I would have preferred a much earlier date.
I am investigating the apparent leap in nursery school demand this year. A largely fruitless meeting at county hall did reveal clearly that there is a huge ‘write in’ at some nursery schools outside the city centre. This confirms anecdotal evidence that I am picking up from residents that supply is now being greatly exceeded by demand. Officials have said they will get back to me with explanations towards the end of the week.
Commentary by Chris White
The Prime Minister is expected today to announce new powers for parents in primary schools over secondary school standards. Councils might be forced to act in response to primary school parents who have not been able to get a place at a school of their choice.
Certainly any move to break the log jam on school standards is welcome: the Thatcherite reforms, continued by this Government, have meant that schools have astonishing levels of autonomy, when you consider that they are spending our money. This can work well when there is good leadership from headteachers and their team. But when things start to go wrong the role of local authorities, once clearly in charge of schools and accountable to you and me, has become unclear.
Even with recent new legislation giving back to local education authorities the power and duty to look after school standards, intervention is often too slow and too mild. Meanwhile parents attempt to vote with their feet – but find that there is too little slack in the system for them to choose to send their children to alternative schools.
We do need the ability to challenge the inertia of bodies like Hertfordshire County Council. Local county councillors, who know local schools and talk daily to local people, are almost entirely excluded from the system with the result that we have the absurd situation in which one man – a councillor from Letchworth whom none of us has elected – has the key decision-making role over local schools in St Albans.
That role should be removed from him and his ilk and be given back to local people and their chosen representatives.
From Education Guardian Tuesday
The final days of the Learning and Skills Council may yet be its rockiest. Not only is its disillusioned workforce considering strike action over their employment rights, but now comes the realisation that the taxpayer may have to pay nearly £42m merely so the dying quango can vacate its premises.
Of the organisation’s 50 bases around the country, 19 will house the two new quangos, the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA), which are to take over – with local authorities – the LSC’s functions.
The remaining 31 offices are surplus to requirements and all but one of them have leases still to run, in some cases for up to 10 years. Even where these leases have “break clauses”, enabling the LSC to get out of agreements before they end, there are considerable sums to pay to do this.
For the taxpayer, the most painful office closure looks like being the Hertfordshire branch, whose lease runs until 2018. According to documents leaked to Education Guardian, this building in St Albans, housing just 32 people, will cost £12.5m to give up.
The 31 offices are to be handed over to the Treasury, which under normal circumstances could expect to find other government tenants or to sublet them. “This is probably as bad a time to be disposing of commercial property as you could imagine, so landlords won’t take anything less than the maximum because they won’t be able to re-let quickly,” says one LSC insider.
It is galling for the workforce, after they have witnessed the stalling of the capital building programme and the more recent debacle over funding for 16-year-olds, to see such a large sum of public money apparently squandered.
Chris comments: More education money wasted as Government reverses its own policy: how may schools in St Albans would this have built?
Sandy Walkington attended this meeting with me and has written up about it.
Follow this link: http://sandy4stalbans.org/wordpress/2009/04/27/the-primary-school-place-crisis-in-the-centre-of-st-albans/
Liberal Democrat county councillors yesterday morning met county council education planning officials to discuss the primary schools crisis in St Albans.
We looked at possible sites and discovered that officials had compiled their own list without talking to elected councillors first. Many of those offered were clearly unacceptable. Others rejected were much more promising and rejected because of some spurious approach to the geography of St Albans.
I have continued to press for the Eversheds site to be given serious consideration. There will be a further meeting next week involving SABLE, which is protesting about the lack of primary school places.