Memorandum submitted by Mr Brian Jones
(SA 31)
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 31 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 Three (SATs)
and Key Stage Four (GCSE).
This information is also utilised by the school
to place new entrants in their Year Seven 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 10 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.
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 Six pupils to sit a nationally recognised
test (eg 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 15 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 15 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.
7 November 2003
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