a)     Councillor Hill  asked the following question of Councillor N. Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services:

Oldfield School pupils only got 40% of their 1st choice places with only 2 girls out of 7 going to Newlands.  Why, when you knew all the class sizes, gender mix and likely 1st place choices did you do nothing for Oldfield school children?

Councillor N. Airey responded that the council had a statutory duty to ensure that there were sufficient school places for every pupil and the current investment of £30m, including £15m of local capital, was increasing the capacity in secondary schools.  In Maidenhead these extra places were at Furze Platt Senior, Cox Green and some at Newlands Girls’ school.  At Newlands the Council had added to the s106 funds for the school to ensure the additional places were delivered as planned.

In the admissions round for September 2018, over 80% of residents were offered their first place preference of school. Over 88% of applicants at primary level also got their first place preference, the highest in eight years.  It was sadly a reality that no authority can promise a particular school because of four factors:  the expressed preferences in a given year, the reputation of the available schools,  the operation of the national admission system, and the individual admission arrangements set by different academies. It was not in the council’s power to directly impact these four issues.

It was these factors which determined the order in which places were allocated.  The national system was called “equal preference” and mandated that places must be allocated against criteria that could not include preference. It was very pleasing to note that all our secondary schools were rated as Good or Outstanding by Ofsted which gave every young person a good chance of educational success regardless of which school was allocated by the system.

Within the current arrangements for Maidenhead secondary schools, the linear distance from home to school was the most commonly used approach to order applications for pupils living in the designated area.  There were a range of other types of criteria that could be used including feeder schools,  different measuring points, and so called ‘random allocation’.  All had strengths and weaknesses, and give a different pattern of space allocation.  Councillor Airey had invited representatives of all secondary admissions authorities to a workshop at the Town Hall on 9 May 2018 led by the Director of Children’s Services to consider what changes could be proposed to improve the situation.  Any proposals would need to be consulted on by the admission authorities before the system was changed however she believed that a coordinated approach was better than each admission authority working alone. Feedback to Oldfield representatives would be provided.

Looking further ahead to the expected increase in housing within the area, it was estimated that a further 20 classes would be needed in every school year group by 2035, at an estimated cost of £277m.  The council had allocated £1.3m to enable feasibility and costs to be developed for a range of schemes to ensure the system worked well.  This work included consideration of the options to increase the capacity of Newlands Girls’ school subject to any decisions the Academy may take.

The council took access to good and outstanding education very seriously and while it could not promise to meet every parent’s preference, it would work with its partners in Academy schools to make the best system it could for local residents.

By way of a supplementary question, Councillor Hill asked what the Lead Member was going to do for the seven forgotten pupils.

Councillor N. Airey responded that no pupil had been forgotten; all had been offered a place. The allocation of places was not up to the authority and it could not tell academies how to allocate places. Unfortunately the local authority did not have the power to change the situation and parental preference could not be taken into account.