Monthly Archives: September 2021

School Admissions for 2022: the process start this month

Posted on by
Reply

At this time of year not only are pupils returning to school but some parents are starting the process of applying for school places for their children for entry in September 2022. This is either for the first-time or because of a switch from primary to secondary (or first to middle and middle to upper in a tiny minority of cases where three-tier systems still linger on). Posy 16 admissions is a different kettle of fish, but can be just as fraught.  

In August, the DfE published the outcomes of Admission Appeals for the academic year 20202/21 across the primary and secondary school sectors in England. Knowing how difficult it is to win an appeal locally may be a key part of decision-making about school choice, and in some cases where to live. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/admission-appeals-in-england-academic-year-2020-to-2021

These appeals relate to entry at the start of the school year. Headline figures as noted by the DfE include:

11,239 appeals were heard relating to primary school places for 2020/21. This represented 1.4% of new admissions. The number and rate have both been dropping since 2015/16, when 22,820 primary appeals were heard (2.6% of new admissions).

Of those heard in 2020/21, 1,823 primary appeals were successful, a rate of 16.2%. This rate is the lowest since this collection started in 2015/16

29,871 appeals were heard relating secondary school places for 2020/21. This represented 4.1% of new admissions.

This a decline from last year, when 35,648 (4.9% of new admissions) appeals were heard. This reverses the increases seen since the start of this collection in 2015/16. In that year 22,964 secondary appeals were heard (3.6% of new admissions).

Of those heard in 2020/21, 6,000 secondary appeals were successful, representing 20.1% of the number heard. This rate has been gradually dropping since 2015/16, when 26.3% of secondary appeals were successful. 

The birth rate and provision of new school places when the birth rate is on the increase are probably the key drivers for the appeals process in the primary sector. Where a new housing estate includes provision for a new school, those moving into the estate before such a school opens might do well to check the situation in existing local schools.

How effective a local authority is in generating school places to meet needs may well also determine the level of challenge by parents not offered a place for their offspring and making an appeal.

Although ‘catchment areas’ or similar terms are used by local authorities as part of the admissions process, parental preference can still take precedence depending upon the admission arrangements.  In-year admissions can still be an issue as schools are often able to go their own way on these admissions and do not have to use a coordinated local system. A review was promised some years ago in a White Paper, but the possibility for confusion still remains.

Popular schools, for whatever reason, will always be over-subscribed and often schools admissions will feature as a part of a Councillor’s postbag each spring. However, the reduction in pupils entering the school system will create some relief and in reduce the need for admission appeals by parents.

School Funding: looking for savings

Posted on by
Reply

Either schools are under-funded or they are not. They certainly say that they are. The IFS Briefing Note  https://ifs.org.uk/publications/15588 lends credence to that view.

But what do they do about it? As a business owner, I need to use my resources in the most effective manner. Schools it seems to me can afford to complain about their funding while still spending in a manner that doesn’t bring a sensible return on the outlay.

Let’s take recruitment spending. And let’s narrow that to spending on teacher recruitment by secondary schools – the most lucrative part of the market for the private sector. This is also an area where I know quite a bit about how the market works having established TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk some seven years ago as a job board for teaching vacancies and where I am still the current Chair.

Now, using TeachVac’s extensive database, we can calculate that the average secondary school recruits around eleven teachers a year. Some recruit fewer, and new schools may recruit more in their first few years.

Some teachers are easy to recruit, such as history teachers or teachers of physical education. Other teachers, such as teachers of business studies or physics, are difficult to recruit at any time, and virtually impossible to recruit for a January vacancy unless a school is exceptionally fortunate.

So, let’s assume over a five year period, a third of vacancies a school may advertise are easy to fill; a third a bit of a challenge and a third very difficult. How do you spend your cash wisely as a school to meet your staffing needs?

Many schools and MATs take out a subscription to an on-line platform that can run into a six figure sum each year. That’s a lot of cash to spend on an easy to fill job and even more cash for a job you cannot fill. So, maybe the cash pays for the third of vacancies in the middle group, possibly an average of 4 vacancies a year. Is that value for money?

TeachVac can fill those vacancies at much less cost to schools, and so can the DfE vacancy site. With TeachVac a school doesn’t have to do anything other than put a job on its website. TeachVac matches candidates looking for the type of vacancy and can report on the size of the market.

With the DfE site, a school must enter the job and hope it can be seen among the plethora of non-teaching posts cluttering up the DfE site.

The DfE site also has the disadvantage of only offering state school posts, so teachers that want a teaching post regardless of whether it is in the state or private sectors probably won’t bother to use the DfE site. TeachVac doesn’t suffer from this constraint.

TeachVac is reviewing its services to ensure better value for money for schools. After all, out technology costs a fraction of historical costs of advertising and at TeachVac we have always thought these saving should be passed on to schools. Do tell us what you think.