For most of the County there was no change over the arrangements recommended at the Schools and Learning Committee, which you can find in my report from the 13th of February.

Arguments and negotiations went on up to the very last moment for the Howard of Effingham school. At the Executive meeting on the 26th of February the new catchment area was clarified and finalised, and feeder schools identified, so that the fourth priority after Looked After Children, Exceptional arrangements, and siblings, is:

‘Those children who both live in the catchment area and who attend one of the following partner/feeder schools: Oakfield, Eastwick, St Lawrence, The Raleigh, and The Dawney’.

This is similar to the arrangement for Oxted, and in both cases an extra, fifth criterion was added: ‘Those children who live in the catchment area but do not attend one of the partner/feeder schools named in (1v) above’.

For children living within the catchment area for the Howard of Effingham School (but not for Oxted) the tie-breaker is ‘those who live furthest from the nearest alternative school as measured by a straight line’.

For Oxted, the tie-breaker is the same, except that it applies to all applicants and not just within the catchment area.

The standard tie-breaker over the rest of Surrey remains home to school distance, measured in a straight line.

These proposals were all finally passed, despite an attempt by Councillors representing areas on the Fetcham side of the Howard of Effingham school to change the tie-break to the standard home-to-school distance.

There is a fundamental problem of too many children wanting to go to the same, good school here, and no obviously fair solution. All the way along, negotiations and compromises came in late. There is a potential problem in that children, particularly on the Fetcham side, may find that if The Howard of Effingham is their nearest school, but they are excluded on the ‘next-nearest’ rule, they will then come lower in the ranking of priorities at the ‘nearest alternative’ than children for whom that school is their closest.  And, indeed, most other LEA schools to which they may apply.

This could in theory leave some children travelling long distances to schools in which their parents have little confidence. In my opinion, some arrangement should be made to make sure that children from the Fetcham area can be assured of a place at Therfield if they are not offered a place at The Howard of Effingham.

I suggested it would take the wisdom of Solomon to settle this, but that Solomon’s answer might be to close The Howard of Effingham down, and that would also take the autocratic power of Solomon. The response from the other side of the Chamber was that what we need is the riches of Solomon. There is sense in that: what we really want is a good school within easy reach of every child.

A practical few words on appeals -

Parents have the right to appeal. They have to do so by 28 March for Primary Schools, and 18 April for secondary schools. They can get the necessary forms and information from the Surrey Contact Centre, on 08456 009009. (There are extra staff on at the moment to cope with the additional calls, so it should not be too hard to get through.)

The new School Admission Appeal Code says: ‘Parents must be advised that their friend or adviser at a hearing cannot be a member of the local authority, a member of the admission authority concerned, or a local elected politician, as this may lead to a conflict of interest and place undue pressure on the panel.’

The most County Councillors can do directly is write a letter of support for parents to submit, and even then we are advised to ‘carefully consider the content and how it could be perceived.’

Parent can get support from:

Advisory Centre for Education - ACE. Tel 0207704 9822, www.ace-ed.org.uk

Surrey Partnership with Parents  Tel 01737 737 300 e-mail pwp.ses@surreycc.gov.uk

Choice Advisor (for secondary admissions) Sharon Oliver, tel 01737 737314, www.pwpsurrrey.org/choiceadvice  e-mail sharon.oliver@surreycc.gov.uk

- or directly from the School Appeal Service, where Angela Bridgman is the Manager. Tel 020 8541 9029

They’ve done what we told them – a month later 

At the beginning of December County Council Officers reacted to massive planned cuts in budget for youth work with the panic cancellation of interviews and a ban on new appointments.

 I put a motion to Full Council a month ago saying that the freeze should be lifted immediately, arguing that it should never have been imposed.  The Conserbvative Executive Member responsible said it was ‘an Officer decision’, and wouldn’t accept the obvious truth that an arbitrary cut-off date leaving some areas, such as Guildford, under half staffed didn’t make sense – not to mention the considerable costs and loss of confidence you get when you cancel a recruitment round at the interview stage. And this when for years we’ve been told a reason for the appalling underuse of Youth Centres is that not enough Youth Workers can be persuaded to work in Surrey.

Looking to the future             

A delayed report on the future of the Youth Service is due to come to the Schools and Learning Committee on February the 28^th. Councillors from all the political parties have said for years that our Youth Centres are not properly used, but whichever group of Conservatives has been in charge, they’ve failed to do anything effective about it.

            Youth Development staff do great work with some of the youngsters in Surrey who need their support most. But residents are always telling us that ‘places to go and things to do’ for all young people should have a higher priority. New ways of working need to be found to let this happen. The Youth Development Service itself should be best placed to do this, so long as it is not weakened by unimaginative hard-line Tories with their unwillingness to look for genuine reform and efficiencies, rather than cuts and sell-offs.

‘Told you so’ is small consolation

            As for Vince Cable with Northern Rock, there’s a certain ‘better late than never’ satisfaction in having our proposed course of action adopted.  I hope it’s not too late to improve morale and attract the new staff who are essential part of bringing about a much-needed change for the better. 

For each section of this report there’s a summary in italics at the top. Feel free to skip to the bits that interest you.

SCC Committee meetings are not usually like yesterday’s (Tuesday 12th February).  Although for most of Surrey there is ‘no change’ , groups of parents from the Oxted and Effingham areas arrived at County Hall in coloured vests with slogans; feelings ran high.

Yesterday’s special meeting of the Schools and Learning Committee was an ‘extra’ concentrating on school admissions, and the criteria used to decide how places in most of the County’s Community and Voluntary Controlled schools are allocated.

The starting point was a set of proposals very much like last years, including an unresolved sore point around admissions to the Howard of Effingham School, and a very controversial change to the catchment area for Oxted School. (Catchment areas only exist in exceptional cases.) The Chairman used her discretion to allow parent representatives to speak, which made for a more constructive and democratic session.

Deciding how decisions are made

… is itself a long process. The committee ‘decision’ was on what to recommend to the Executive before the proposal goes to Full Council. The recommendations could be totally ignored, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Proposals went out for consultation in November 2007. Consultation documents went to a long list of interested parties including Headteachers, Chairs of Governors and Parent Governors in Surrey’s state-supported schools. Written responses had to be in by the end of January, and the consultation process was supposed to have finished with the meeting of the Schools Admissions Forum last Friday, 8th February.

The Admissions Forum advises and recommends, then when the consultation is over, the initial proposals come back to County Hall for a decision.
This starts off with the Schools and Learning Committee, which again considers the responses and makes recommendations to go to the Executive on the 26th of February, and the final policy goes to Full Council on the 4th of March.

You might well ask what we were doing all morning when we didn’t have the power to decide anything definitely beyond what recommendations we were going to make. Sometimes it can feel futile, but the iterative nature of the process does mean that proposals can get considered and refined all the way along. It feels a bit like all trying to steer a heavy boat away from disaster and towards a reasonable destination by pushing it along.

It doesn’t help when the bureaucracy trips over a tight schedule. The central paper was e-mailed the day before, but the vital map showing he new proposed catchment area for the Howard of Effingham was tabled at the meeting, in inadequate numbers of copies for those interested, and was not easy to read.

Admission Criteria for most Surrey state schools:

Same as last year

This is the recommendation accepted by the committee:

A. All Surrey schools will operate an Equal Preference System.
B. The majority of Surrey’s Community and Voluntary Controlled schools will use the
following criteria when a school is oversubscribed:
1. Looked After Children
2. Exceptional Arrangements
3. Siblings
4. Children for whom the school is the nearest
5. Any other applicant
The tie-breaker distance measurement by straight line.

(Item 4, Officer Report. Map of Catchment Area will be on SCC web site with this paper.)

Oxted School

Catchment area will include Lingfield, Dormansland and Godstone, but with criteria tougher on siblings and children not in named feeder schools

Oxted is unusual in having a fixed catchment area. It runs up to neighbouring County borders and around Lingfield and Dormansland includes a rural area that nevertheless has a fast train link north to Oxted. The proposal that went to consultation reduced the catchment area to exclude Godstone, Dormansland, and Lingfield.

This caused significant protest in these areas. On response forms, 2232 people disagreed, while only 50 agreed. There was a protest march from Godstone to Oxted, much news coverage, and the local (Conservative) County Councillors also objected.

The compromise that has been reached is a restoration of the larger catchment area, but combined with a feeder school criterion, and with a tie-break of furthest away from the nearest alternative school.

This is the wording:

vi) In response to the consultation:
1. For Oxted School revert back to the extended catchment area to
include Godstone, Lingfield and Dormansland and give joint priority
status to those children living within the catchment area and
attending a named partner / feeder school. Phase in a change to
the sibling criterion from 2010 to ensure that local places are not
jeopardised by siblings who move into / live outside the fixed
catchment area. The September 2009 admissions criteria would
therefore be:
i) Looked after Children
ii) Exceptional arrangements
iii) Siblings
iv) Those children who both live in the catchment area and
who attend one of the following partner / feeder schools:
Dormansland, Godstone, Holland, Lingfield, St Catherine’s,
St John’s, St Mary’s, St Stephen’s, Tatsfield, Woodlea
v) Any other applicant
The tie-breaker within each criterion will be those who live furthest
from the nearest alternative school as measured by a straight line.

(Item 4, Officer Report. Map of catchment area will be on the SCC website with this paper)

The Howard of Effingham

New catchment area. Horsleys in, part of Fetcham out. Tie-breaker distance from nearest alternative school.

Last year the introduction of ‘Equal Preference’ and the standard admissions criteria led to children from East and West Horsley not getting admission to the Howard of Effingham school and being assigned schools as far away, difficult to reach by public transport, and relatively unpopular as Bishop David Brown in Woking.

They appealed to the Schools’ Adjudicator and got an in-year variation that nominated partner schools and after that used distance from the nearest alternative school as a tie-breaker.

The proposal that went to consultation would have retained this arrangement. It disadvantages children in Fetcham and Bookham who also have the Howard of Effingham as their nearest school, but are also fairly close to Therfield in Leatherhead. But Therfield is often over-subscribed, so that child might well have to travel even further to find a school.

The interests of the different communities are opposed, and as was remarked in committee it would take the wisdom of Solomon to settle this one (though no-one suggested closing the Howard of Effingham down).

The compromise proposed is a new fixed catchment area which excludes part of Fetcham. Partner schools are abandoned, but the’ furthest away from nearest alternative school’ tie-breaker is retained.

I asked about the children not within the catchment area whose nearest school was the Howard of Effingham, which would not now be a realistic option. Would entry procedures be changed so that Therfield became their ‘nearest school’?

The answer was that discussion was still taking place with the Head. As the (Conservative) Chair of the Committee said: ‘Hasn’t the consultation period finished? … [this] makes a mockery of dealing with the parents …’. But at the same time, we had to agree that negotiation should not be abandoned solely to keep to the timetable.

This was the recommendation that went forward:
For The Howard of Effingham School change the criteria as
follows:
i) Looked after Children
ii) Exceptional arrangements
iii) Siblings
iv) Applicants living within the catchment area
v) Any other applicant
The tie-breaker within each criterion will be to give priority to those
children living furthest away from their nearest alternative school as
measured by a straight line.

A quick trot through the other recommended exceptions:

The Oaktree and Hermitage Schools here in Woking to get partner/feeder status; Acorns Infant and Brockham Primary School to revert to sibling criteria which favour non-siblings for which it is the nearest school over siblings for whom it isn’t; discontinue ‘shared school status’ to Knowle Park Infant and Kingscroft Junior Schools, and Marshfields Infant and Christchurch Junior Schools.