MEMORANDUM FOR THE EDUCATION AND SKILLS
COMMITTEE
WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2003
SECONDARY EDUCATION: SCHOOL ADMISSION
BRIAN K. JONES
1) Introduction
This memorandum is written in a personal capacity
and does not necessarily reflect the views of my former employers,
the governors of Archbishop Tenison's School. The following opinions
are based on my experiences within the inner London education
system, after working for over 38 years in various types of maintained
comprehensive secondary schools throughout the capital. During
this period, I also represented my colleagues as a senior official
of my then professional association. In January 1992, I was appointed
Headmaster of Archbishop Tenison's C of E Boys' V.A. Comprehensive
School in the London Borough of Lambeth. I retired from this position
on 31st August 2003.
2) Current Admissions Procedures at Archbishop
Tenison's School
At the School, the governors operate a "banding"
admission system to ensure a balanced academic intake. This involves
Year 6 primary school boys, who wish to apply for a place at Tenison's,
being invited into the School after the Open Days and after they
have completed an application form to take a National Foundation
Educational Research (NFER) Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT). The
testing process usually takes about three hours and the school
can accommodate between 60 - 70 boys at each session. The children
are required to sit a battery of tests:
(i) Verbal (comprehension/literacy test)
(ii) Quantitative (arithmetical test)
(iii) Non-Verbal (IQ test)
At the end of the tests, all the papers are sent
to the NFER for marking and approximately a fortnight later, the
results are dispatched to the school. The NFER provide a score
for each child in academic rank and alphabetical order plus various
distribution graphs. They also provide an individual performance
analysis for each child. The information can be used for diagnostic,
predictive and banding purposes. It is very useful at this stage
to have some indication of the levels of achievement that the
child has the potential to attain at both Key Stage 3 (SATs) and
Key Stage 4 (GCSE).
This information is also utilised by the school to
place new entrants in their Year 7 tutor groups. Each tutor group
comprises children of approximately the same academic ability,
as reflected by the tests. Each child is placed into one of three
bands. Band 1 = above average ability; Band 2 = average ability;
Band 3 = below average ability. In recent years, the school has
been heavily over-subscribed in each band. In these circumstances,
the Governors have prioritised applications from bona fide worshipping
Anglican families, followed by other Christian denominations.
Although as a church school the governors have the
right to interview prospective pupils prior to offering places,
the governors have chosen not to exercise this option. However,
the governors do need to assure themselves that the child and
his family will be supportive of the Anglican/Christian ethos
of the school. In order to satisfy this requirement, the governors
take into account reports from the primary school and local clergy.
Offers of places are usually made in January and
parents of the successful children are asked to accept the offer
within ten working days. Parents of unsuccessful applicants are
informed of the outcome of their son's application and of their
right to appeal to an independent panel. For a variety of reasons,
it is the case that not all offers are accepted. The school is
then able to offer these places to other families in accordance
with the admissions criteria. A copy of the school's admissions
policy is attached
3) Suggestions for London Borough Co-ordination
Currently in Lambeth and surrounding LEAs, similar
tests are being taken in different schools at approximately the
same time. It is not unknown for a child to have taken the same
tests up to three times at different schools in a two week period.
This is clearly stressful for the child and wasteful in terms
of administrative and other costs on the part of the testing schools.
I believe that the time has now come for the local education authority
where I worked (Lambeth) to discuss with the secondary and primary
school heads, a way in which the whole process can be co-ordinated
and streamlined. If agreement can be reached with the primary
schools for their Year 6 pupils to sit a nationally recognised
test (e.g. one set by the NFER) on the same day, for which the
papers would be marked externally, secondary heads would no longer
have to make their own testing arrangements. Lambeth children
would benefit by taking one test in the security of familiar surroundings
without having the stress and trauma of visiting different schools
in different locations.
I recognise that reaching agreement on the above
will not be easy and the main obstacles can be identified as follows:-
· Securing
the agreement and co-operation of all secondary heads.
· Overcoming
the initial objections of primary heads, some of whom would be
opposed to testing, on ideological grounds.
· Ensuring
that if the primary schools are to administer the tests, that
they are conducted in accordance with the NFER requirements. If
the requirements are not followed, the tests would be invalidated
and meaningless, so some in-service training would be required.
· There
would have to be a "clearing-house" system established
by the Local Authority, which had the confidence of both secondary
and primary heads and the parents of the children taking the tests.
· Special
arrangements would have to be made for children attending schools
or living outside Lambeth.
Currently, I regret to say that I do not believe
the secondary heads would have confidence in the Lambeth LEA's
ability to co-ordinate or administer the process efficiently or
effectively. Therefore, I recommend that this should be out-sourced
to an independent agency. This agency would be responsible co-ordinating
the system and for providing the secondary heads with the test
results of children who had applied for a place at their school.
It would also be necessary for agreement to be reached
between secondary heads for a unified date for notifying parents
of the result of their application (probably a pan London date
of 15th March). Again, the notification could be handled
by an external agency through whom all applications for admission
would have to be channelled. Parents, who would be invited to
complete the form, indicating in rank order their preferences
for a Lambeth secondary school, could use a common application
form. This form could be completed with the assistance of primary
heads and then submitted to the agency for processing. It might
be possible, if agreement could be reached, for this form to be
used for all secondary schools in Lambeth. However, cognisance
would have to be taken of the views of the voluntary-aided Church
schools, which would need to ask questions regarding for example,
faith, worship attendance, etc. This may prove to be contentious
as the voluntary-aided church schools might wish to continue using
their own application form, but this would have to be used in
conjunction with the agreed Borough application form.
During the process, the agency would obviously have
to consult with the receiving secondary schools so that the latter
could provide a list of children that they were prepared to offer
places to, in accordance with their individual admission policy.
The agency would then be responsible for liaising with the various
schools to ensure that they were able to fulfil the wishes of
the parents and the schools as best they could. On an agreed date,
(possibly 15th March or nearest working day), parents
would be made an offer of one school.
Such an arrangement has been reasonably successfully
piloted, in the London Borough of Croydon, and this has considerably
reduced the number of children without the offer of a place. It
has also reduced the number of appeals because once this system
is operative, the right of appeal will only apply to a family's
first preference.
I hope that the Committee will find this paper of
assistance during their deliberations.
Brian K. Jones
7th November 2003
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