School review 'offers fairness'

The central aim of the City of York Education Committee's review of admissions to secondary schools is to try to establish a fair and unifying policy, which gives greater clarity to parents about their options, and which is fairer to a greater number of pupils.

Councillors have been clear that this is what the review is about, and equally clear in documents and public presentations about the issues it will not resolve.

This review has been undertaken with consideration of our underpinning "education principle" and strategy - that there is investment in all our schools to improve performance and to provide better learning opportunities for all pupils. The Schools Learning Together plan, described in the Evening Press is an example of how York is leading the way in initiatives such as this.

In all the public meetings on admissions the aspiration to focus on school improvement and every school being a good school has been widely applauded. Schools have embraced this willingly and are setting visionary targets for GCSE. By the year 2001, 65 per cent of pupils will achieve five GCSE A-C grades. This will place every York school among the best in the country. This is hardly complacent.

I cannot comment in detail upon the proposed merger of the corporations of the Sixth Form College and York College of Further and Higher Education, but the vision of providing customers with a breadth and depth of expertise must be applauded. Eleven to 16 schools in the city provide some of the strongest teaching and greatest added-value and form the basis for the results of the Sixth Form College in particular.

Mr Leftwich appears to misunderstand what the proposals will do - they will certainly not diminish pupil-need or parental preference.

All of the options - including the present system - will still allow parents to express a preference for any school they wish. The point that is missed is that parental preference is simply that - arrangements for allocating places have to come into play when a school is oversubscribed. We think it is fair to base this on geography, if it leads to a fairer system of allocation once schools are full. The current systems are based on the "administrative" geography of four previous authorities, and therefore work very differently depending upon where you live.

The review, which began in September, 1997, has included widescale consultation through public meetings, market research, and an information/questionnaire booklet to all parents of primary and nursery-aged children in York. We have received a very large response to this and are now putting together a report on what people have said to us, or written to us, about this issue.

All information we have received will be placed on public record. Parents have been telling us what is important to them in choosing a school - whether this is curriculum, home to school distance, primary school links, sixth form etc.

The Education Committee, when it meets in June, will reach a decision that can reflect these.

See Adrian Leftwich criticisms of City of York Council's review of the schools admissions policy

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.