Secondary school selection issues
March 14th 2008

Authorities last week began sending out letters to allocate positions for secondary schools for the year beginning 2008. It is a startling fact to know that around 35 percent of children in and around the area of London won’t have received a place for their first choice selection because of increased competition, according to government figures published yesterday.

With one in ten secondary schools labelled “inadequate” by government inspectors last year, this has led to a mad scramble for places at those schools which have been rated highly, with desperate parents turning to former teachers and education officials to help obtain places at the better schools.

Some parents have gone to extreme measures, it has been said that some parents have paid in excess of £2,500 to find a place at a government run secondary school, where tuition costs nothing.

It is situations such as these which have led to the growth of “School Appeals” sites where experienced education officials have set up business to aid parents in the appeals process in against their local education authority. One such website has been set up by John Chard who organised over 2,500 appeals at Brighton and Hove council before becoming an independent advisor. His website www.schoolappeals.org.uk has a wealth of advice for anxious parents to gain advice with regards to whether or not they should be able to appeal against the allocation their child has received.

The fee of £5 to gain membership includes receipt of a book written by John Chard called “Your School Your Place” which normally retails at £9.99 and also access to a number of forums where parents can seek the advice of other parents and also education professionals. If the information on the site isn’t sufficient then the more expensive option is for the case to be made by the School Appeals team. John charges £725 plus expenses to prepare a case and accompany parents to an appeal hearing. In the 48 hours after the letter was received the School Appeals website received over 6,000 visitors.

Around 568,000 children in England are due to start at secondary school at the beginning of September and around 102,000 children failed to obtain a place at their first choice school. The national average for appeals is around 35% nut Chard has said that about 80 percent of the appeals he advises are successful.

There are alternative placement advisors, one such is former primary school head teacher Graham Jones who runs Schools Select http://www.schoolselect.co.uk/ In 2007 they helped over fifty families find the right school for their child and where they had represented families at appeals hearings they won in over 93% of cases. In addition they say that they produced appeal documents for over fifty families - 80% were successful at appeal - which is nearly five times the National Average. For Graham’s services the fees can be as much as £2,795.

Parents list as many as six secondary schools in order of preference. Places are usually allocated by local authorities based on a set number of criteria such as: - whether children have siblings already attending the school, how far away they live, whether students have special educational needs, and with some faith schools, religious affiliation.

Schools minister Ed Balls had confirmed in the Guardian ‘that this year just under 20% of children did not gain a secondary school of their choice - fewer than last year. While 95.5% were offered a place at one of their three preferred schools, some 4.4% were not offered any of their preferred options’.

Some secondary schools have flouting the rules and have found to be charging parents hundreds of pounds as part of the application process to find the school of their choice.

The minister said in the Guardian: "For any school that is imposing financial obligations on the parents I want to be clear that this practice must stop immediately.

"Parents must not be required to pay any contribution to the school as a condition of admission whatever they may have agreed to do when making their application.

"Any school that has asked parents to make a financial contribution as a condition of admission must make clear to those parents now that such a payment is not mandatory," he said.

One thing is certain the application process for secondary school entrance is particularly fraught. We would like to hear from any parents whose children have not received the place at the school they desire, and from schools in the Rickmansworth area who can bring to light the difficulties of selection they undergo each year.