Department for Education. Consultation on the changes to the admissions framework. Response by the Children's Legal Centre

Transcription

1 Department for Education Consultation on the changes to the admissions framework Response by the Children's Legal Centre August 2011

2 The Children's Legal Centre (CLC) is a unique, independent national charity staffed with experts on law and policy relating to children and young people. The Centre works in the UK and abroad to promote the implementation of children's rights through the provision of direct legal services, the publication of free legal information online and in legal guides, research and policy development, law reform and training and consultancy. Founded in 1981, the CLC has almost 30 years experience in providing legal advice and representation to children, their parents and carers and professionals throughout the UK. The CLC is funded by grants from central government, UNICEF, and charitable trusts. The CLC's solicitors specialise in child, education and family law and the Centre provides Legal Help and Representation in a wide range of legal matters, including on admissions and admission appeals. The CLC also operates several free advice phone lines. Through its Child Law Advice Line, it provides advice to around 10,000 parents, professionals and young people on a wide range of legal issues each year. The CLC also offers education advice on a wide range of education law matters through its Community Legal Advice - Education Line. The Children's Legal Centre (CLC) welcomes the opportunity to share our experience in response to the Department for Education's Consultation on changes to the admissions framework, published in May The CLC supports the primary aims of the proposals, that is, to simplify the Admissions Codes, namely the Schools Admissions Code and School Admissions Appeal Code, in order to remove many of the unnecessary and costly prescriptive burdens on schools and local authorities and thereby allow schools and local authorities to focus on setting clearer, fairer admission arrangements and ensure that all school places are offered in a fair and lawful way and that school admission appeals are heard in a fair and lawful way. We agree that the overall aim of the admissions framework should be to ensure that all school places are offered in a fair and lawful way to all children. We would note, however, that the explicit aim of the admissions framework should be to respond effectively and fairly to the unique circumstances, characteristics and vulnerabilities of each child. We also agree that the current admissions framework is overly complex and repetitive, and that the current Codes should be made clearer, as this will benefit parents / carers and their children. We have limited our response to those parts of the consultation that are most relevant to our expertise and experience, and have grouped related questions together. 1. Increasing access to schools and widening admissions criteria (Questions 3 and 6) Children who attract the Pupil Premium The government proposes to give admissions priority to children who attract a Pupil Premium. We agree with this proposal. Giving children who attract the

3 Pupil Premium priority in school admissions is a positive step forward in ensuring that the most vulnerable children can access the schools they require. At the CLC we assist children who are vulnerable, whether this is due to economic factors, special educational needs or difficult family circumstances. It is very important, to secure the wellbeing and positive development of these children, that they receive the most suitable and appropriate educational placement. Although this proposal is welcome, it is unclear why this proposal just relates to Academies and Free Schools and it is our view is that this should be extended to allow all state funded schools to give these pupils priority within their admissions criteria. Children subject to Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs) and adopted children We also feel that there are other groups of children, who are not included in the consultation document, that who should be given priority in school admissions. The CLC is pleased that `looked after' children are still going to be given first priority in all admissions arrangements. It is clear that these children are vulnerable, due to the difficulties backgrounds they have faced, and therefore need to be given priority within admissions criteria. There are, however, additional groups of children who may not be `looked after children' but are equally as vulnerable. There are increasing numbers of children who are subject to Special Guardianship Orders (SGO) which means that instead of being in foster care they are placed with family members or family friends. These children will have been removed from their parents' care due to issues such as drug or alcohol abuse, violence or neglect. They have therefore faced the same difficult background and experiences as children who are `looked after'. Such children may have extensive emotional difficulties and would, if not placed with family members or family friends, be in the care of social services. Due to these needs, these children may require a placement at a particular school. Case Study: Why child under a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) should be offered priority in school admissions C is 5 years old and lives with his grandparents under a SGO due to the severe neglect he suffered whilst in his mother's care. C has severe emotional difficulties and abandonment issues due to his past experience whilst in his mother's care. He had begun attending a nursery and had made friends there. These friends were moving to a local Catholic school which was very close to his grandparent's home. His grandparents put this as their preference for his school placement to ensure that he would have a network of support at school and ensure that they could come to the school if he had any difficulties. Their application was unsuccessful and although he was eventually offered a place following the involvement of the Children's Legal Centre, this involved months of uncertainty for C and his grandparents. If priority had been given to him on the basis of his status as a child under a SGO and acknowledgment given for his vulnerability, this would have ensured that he could have been offered a place without the stress and delay of having to go through an appeal process.

4 In addition, children who are adopted have often been in the care of social services on child protection grounds until a permanent placement and adoptive parents can be found. These children will be vulnerable and have undergone major upheaval in their lives. This will often result in them having emotional issues which may be best served by a placement in a particular school. The CLC's view is that children who have been adopted or been placed under an SGO within the past year or are currently subject to such proceedings should be given priority within admission criteria. Giving such vulnerable children priority within admissions criteria may ensure that they obtain a place at a school they require and provide stability at this difficult stage in their lives. Children with special social and medical needs As in the current code, the new code allows admissions authorities to give priority to children who have social and medical needs and require a place at a specific school as a result of this. At the CLC we assist many parents who have children who would satisfy this criteria and obtaining a place at the right school is extremely important for these children to ensure they can access suitable education. This includes children who have special educational needs but do not have a SEN Statement, children who have extensive medical needs or children who have social and emotional problems due to bullying or difficult family circumstances. Despite the importance of giving these children priority in admission criteria, admissions authorities are not mandated to give admission priority to children with social and medical need. Given the benefit that these children will obtain from the correct school place, we would propose that admissions authorities be mandated to give priority to children with social and medical needs within their admissions criteria. Although there may be concern that this will disadvantage other children, we do not believe that this will be the case, given the limited number of children that will satisfy this criteria and the fact that parents will have to supply evidence to support their application under this criteria. Twins and children of multiple births The CLC agrees with the proposal to include twins and children of multiple births as an exception to infant class size limits. It is important for siblings to be educated together. 2. Changes to the Admissions Code (Question 4) In the consultation document, it is proposed that the requirement on local authorities to coordinate in year admissions be removed, and that parents applying for a school place outside the normal admissions round make contact with local authorities, which would be responsible for providing parents with information on schools and admissions in their area. We agree with this proposal. In our experience, parents who are trying to transfer their children to another school or move into a new area often have to wait a considerable time before their application is processed and a place is offered. The process of local authorities providing parents with the initial information they require regarding

5 schools in the area could assist parents to make an informed choice about which schools to approach and which schools have places available. Transferring the responsibility of processing the application to the school should reduce any unnecessary time being wasted by information having to be transferred between the local authority and the school. 3. Changes to the Admissions Appeals Code (Questions 11, 12 and 14) The government proposes various amendments to the Admissions Appeals Code. One proposal is to allow appeal hearings to take place within schools. Although this may save money, holding Independent Appeals within schools may lead parents to perceive that the process is not independent. Parents need to have confidence that their appeal is being dealt with fairly and independently and we feel this proposal may impair this. We therefore do not agree with this proposal and would contend that all appeal hearings be held outside of schools in an independent venue. We do not agree with the proposal to reduce the level of training for appeal panel members. Although a further training programme every two years may not be required, the proposal to allow individual members or the admission authority to decide when training is necessary is overly subjective. Panel members need to have regular training/updates to ensure that they fully understand the admissions system. Therefore, the requirement for annual updates should be kept as a minimum prescribed requirement with additional training being undertake when required. We agree with the proposal to increase the time parents have to lodge an appeal from 10 days to at least 30 working days. This increased time period will allow parents to consider whether they wish to appeal, enable them to obtain advice before making an appeal and allow them to obtain more information and evidence to lodge an appeal. The government also proposes replacing the current two-stage appeal process with two three-stage processes: one for single appeals and one for multiple appeals. The proposal to increase the stages of appeal from two to three is welcome. The two-stage process does lack clarity and, in our experience, appeal panels often fail to give appropriate consideration to the lawfulness of the admissions criteria and whether they have been applied correctly in that particular case. Dividing the first stage into two parts should make it clear to the panel that consideration has to be given to both of these factors. However, we do not agree with there being two separate appeal processes: one for single appeals and one for multiple appeals. The reason for this proposal is is to ensure that personal information about children is not discussed with a large number of other parents present during the group stage of these appeals. However, it is our view that having two separate processes will be very confusing for parents faced with an appeal. The aim of the new codes is to clarify the

6 admissions system and the use of two processes, which may be confusing, is not in line with this aim. To ensure clarity, the CLC would support only one of these processes being used to decide admission appeals. Given that large amounts of appeals will be held as multiple appeals, we feel it would be appropriate to use this three stage process to determine all appeals, whether these are multiple or individual. This will still ensure that all relevant factors are considered by the panel but ensure that all parties are clear about the stage of the admission appeal process. In our view, a single appeal process should always be an option for parents, due to the sensitive issues that may be discussed during the appeal process, which can include medical, psychological and / or social information relating to individual children. It can be traumatic for parents and children to have to discuss these matters in front of a number of other parents and children from the community. Please direct inquiries to: Kate Harvey Education Advisor Kirsten Anderson Head of Research, Policy and Communications The Children's Legal Centre University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ Tel: +44 (0) kirstena@essex.ac.uk