Agenda item

[Report of the assistant Director for Schools and Learning. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Children and Families.]To consider the proposed

arrangements for admission to the Borough's community settings at nursery, primary, junior and secondary level and to St Aidan's Voluntary Controlled School and for sixth form admission for the year 2018/19, for consultation.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Families introduced the report which proposed a 6 week statutory consultation on school admission arrangements for 2018/19.The Cabinet Member advised Cabinet Member colleagues that these were largely a continuation of the current arrangements.

RESOLVED

1.    To agree to consult on the proposed admission arrangements, including in year arrangements, for 2018/19;

2.    To agree to consult on the proposed IYFAP which, if agreed by a Member Lead signing in January 2017, would be used from 1 March 2017;

3.    To agree the co-ordinated scheme for 2018/19 as set out in Appendices 2 and 3 of this report, and that the scheme can be published on the Haringey website on 1 January 2017

4.    To note that consultation on the proposed admission arrangements is scheduled to take place between 27 October 2016 and 8 December 2016;

5.    To note that following the consultation, a report will be prepared summarising the representations received from the consultation and a decision on the final admission arrangements and the In Year Fair Access Protocol will be taken by Lead Member signing in January 2017.

Reasons for decision

This report and the consultation that will flow from it if the report’s recommendations are agreed will ensure that our proposed admission arrangements for 2018/19 are consulted upon and the co-ordinated scheme is set in accordance with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code 2014.

We consult on our admission arrangements annually irrespective of whether or not there is a proposed change to the arrangements^[1]. This is to ensure transparency and openness on the contents of our arrangements and to allowparents, carers and other stakeholders who might not previously been interested in admission arrangements (perhaps because they didn’t have a child of school age) to make a representation which can then be considered as part of the determination of the arrangements.

Alternative options considered

We are required by the School Admissions Code 2014 (Para 1.42 – 1.45 of the Code) to carry out any consultation on our admission arrangements between 1 October and 31 January each year for a minimum period of six weeks. We are not proposing any changes to the proposed admission arrangements for the year 2018/19 apart from a small number of minor technical changes which include a) that the required number of primary heads needed to sit on Primary IYFAP shall be no less than 3, and that all year 6 in-year applications will be offered through Primary IYFAP once the October PLASC of the same year has taken place (first Thursday of October).   However, as set out in Para 4.2 above, we consult annually on our arrangements irrespective of whether we are proposing any changes, to allow transparency and openness in the process.