Tag Archives: schools

Don’t Panic?

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This has been a good week for TeachVac (www.teachvac.com) the free to use recruitment site that I helped establish. Not only did it receive a mention in The Guardian on Tuesday – in Fiona Millar’s piece about recruitment challenges – but it also featured on BBC Breakfast TV on Wednesday morning. As a result, I have been on a number of local radio stations at various times this week following their picking up on one or other of the pieces in the national media.

So, what is the situation for September 2016? A trend we at TeachVac noted in December and have seen continuing in January is a larger than expected number of advertisements in the three key EBacc subjects; English, mathematics and the sciences. One of the problems of pre-recording media interviews several days in advance is that percentages change and it is important not to over-estimate. Thus the 40% increase that is being used in some quarters was actually an under-representation of the change between this year and last during the first two weeks of January. Of course what we will not know for several months is whether the increase is a genuine increase in demand or just a change in behaviour on the part of some schools that have brought forward recruitment, perhaps on the basis of anticipated need rather than an actual vacancy in order to start the process early. Now that some academy chains have changed their dates for resignation to the start of term that may also be an influencing factor.

Whatever the reason, or reasons, we are still seeing more advertisements than in 2015. This makes the fact that TeachVac is free to schools, teachers and trainees ever more important. After all, TeachVac was established to help reduce the cost of recruitment. If the free to use model works for Twitter, why not for teacher recruitment?

The team at Teachvac regularly has schools phoning us and asking, ‘can the process of advertising a vacancy really be that simple and free as well?’ The answer, of course is yes. If you don’t believe it and haven’t  yetseen the demonstration video on the site, then I urge you to have a look and tell the remaining schools, teachers and trainees that still haven’t signed up to do so.

Schools that enter vacancies into TeachVac for secondary main scale teachers are told the current state of the ‘free pool’ of possible applicants. TeachVac issued its first alert of 2016 this week when the ‘free pool’ in English slipped below the two thirds level. If advertisements continue at this rate there won’t be enough new entrants to ensure all vacancies can be easily filled throughout the year. Not a problem yet, but it could become the autumn for schools looking at vacancies in January 2017.

At TeachVac, we believe this early warning can help when timetables are constructed as it provides early warning of potential challenges. The changing position is updated regularly in the TeachVac monthly newsletters and other Reviews we publish. Schools, local authorities and other interested parties, such as subject associations and teaching schools, can access more detailed information for a small fee.

My assessment of the 2016 recruitment round, at least for secondary main scale teachers, where the data is richest, is that the increasing school population is starting to affect demand and the under-recruitment into preparation last September will cause issues for some schools in some subjects. Perhaps that’s why the train to be a teacher advert made an appearance on Channel 4 last evening. But, more about recruitment for 2016 at the end of the month when new figures will appear from UCAS.

Geopolitics and macroeconomics

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Whether the world is a more dangerous place this January isn’t for me to say. However, to balance my short-term views about teacher supply problems I thought it worth thinking about what the combined effects of a downturn in China; tensions in the Middle East; falling oil prices and the possibility of rising interest rates might do to the longer-term teacher supply position.

An analysis of data over the past fifty years suggests teacher supply problems ease when the economy is subdued or in recession. Whether there is a direct link between these two facts may be arguable, but while there is a need to educate children there will be a need for teachers. Again, over the past fifty years, there have been massive strides in technology since the famous BBC programme of the late 1970s ‘The chips are down’ about the microprocessor revolution. Classrooms have adapted to make use of the new technology, but there has been no seismic shift away from traditional patterns of pupil teacher numbers. Indeed, in secondary schools over the past decade, pupil-teacher ratios have even improved, according to DfE data.

The recently reported growth in home schooling may be the first signs of a coming revolution, driven by parents no longer satisfied with the current model of schooling. Tablets, TVs and computers can provide more learning power than any school library of a couple of decades ago. What is needed is the means of instruction and the method of motivation to keep youngsters on task. How much more likely is that in a home environment than when youngsters are faced with the distractions caused by 25 or 30 other children: could learning me more focused and take less time in the home than the classroom?

No doubt, parents would still want children to socialise in order to learn team games, sing together and undertake risky science experiments under the control of a qualified person. However, that might mean only sending your child to school for a couple of days a week. Such a shift might also boost the market for tutors as parents just buy in specific skills where their offspring are facing issues with learning.

As the BBC recently highlighted, the spirit of enterprise is abroad in Britain at the present time. I am sure that there are many developers in both large companies and small start-ups eying what could be a lucrative market that has world-wide potential; some of which will be on display at BETT.

Such a shift in technology from a labour intensive to a technology driven learning process could have a profound effect on both the need for teachers and the spending by the State on education. However, in the short-term, the geopolitical and macroeconomic signals might suggest that if a downturn is coming then teaching might benefit from renewed interest as a career choice.

As I have said at several conferences recently, I am one of the only people that might see benefits from a slowdown in China, even if it only reduces the inflow to that country of UK teachers to work in the growing international school market.

However, with the allocations for 2016 entry into teacher preparation courses set and fewer places available on non-EBacc subjects than in 2015, none of this will matter before 2017 unless, as in 2009, any downturn in the world’s economy bring back greater numbers of returners into teaching: such an effect could dramatically alter the picture of teacher supply, even for 2016, were it to come about.

Fig leaf look a bit threadbare

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It didn’t take long for the national press to take up the issue of teacher supply in 2016. The Observer, a paper that has carried several stories about teacher supply over the past few months, including covering my evidence to the Select Committee in last Sunday’s edition, has highlighted the concerns of Sir Michael Wilshaw about recruitment in coastal and deprived areas expressed in his annual report. The reporters also highlight Labour’s issues with the DfE statistics, including both the inclusion of Teach First numbers being included in the annual census of trainees and the presentation of vacancy numbers based on data collected in November. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/02/ofsted-row-ministers-extent-teacher-shortages-michael-wilshaw

As Sir Michael Wilshaw demonstrated in his last annual report, even the DfE figures, collected at the most favourable time of the year, have been going in the wrong direction over the past few years. It is not the fault of civil servants that the only data they collect comes from a census taken in November, but the fig leaf that this provides Ministers with now looks ever more threadbare.

How can you operate a National Teaching Service if you do not know the annual demand from schools for teachers? I am interested to know if anyone has yet seen the parameters for the working of this service. As schools are already recruiting for September 2016, if the government doesn’t enable the service soon it will have an even more challenging first year of operation than might be necessary.

Who does the government have that is capable of running such a service anyway? How much will they pay the teachers; will they only recruit existing teachers, perhaps from Teach First; will it just be secondary schools offered such teachers or will primary and special schools be included; will such teachers be offered only to academies or will all schools be able to bid for such teachers? Who knows, if you do please let me know where I can find out the details.

If the Observer didn’t actually talk to Sir Michael before writing their story, but just based it on comments in his annual report, they might want to ask him about progress at GCSE in areas where recruitment is challenging. TeachVac’s preliminary investigation of 2015 GCSE 5A*-Cs results including English and mathematics, compared with 2014, suggest that in London more schools performed less well in 2015 than 2014 than did better. Now, nationally, there was an overall decline of half a per cent in this figures, so some schools doing worse than last year was to be expected. The fact that overall more schools did in London worse raises questions about whether teacher supply problems might have contributed to the outcomes, even if schools have tried to protect examination classes.

Of course, since the DfE don’t believe there is a crisis in teacher supply anywhere in the country they will have to come up with a different explanation if it is true school performance in London has faltered compared with some other parts of England.

Teacher recruitment in 2016

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How will schools looking for teachers in 2016 fare? Teacher supply was a common theme of discussions in the autumn term of 2016, so I thought I would share some preliminary analysis regarding the start of the 2016 recruitment round. Schools signed up to TeachVac, our free recruitment site that costs schools nothing to post vacancies, receive more detailed information thorough our monthly newsletter. To find out more visit http://www.teachvac.co.uk

In addition, secondary schools receive the unique update on the size of the remaining ‘free pool’ of trainees every time they upload details of a main scale vacancy. At present, this is the national picture since the NCTL seem reluctant to reveal regional data in any meaningful form, despite in 2014 telling me that they had hoped to do so in 2015. The data on regional provision in the priority subjects that they have produced is challenging to map against the actual census numbers in some subjects. As the key census table also has gaps that appear to be filled in another table, I have a word of caution about the data in the public domain. No doubt some enterprising MP will ask questions or the Select Committee will elicit the actual data from the DfE as part of their inquiry. If so, we will update the information in TeachVac.

Anyway, using the data that is available we can assume that Teach First trainees will be in classrooms and unavailable to fill vacancies, other than as qualified teachers at the end of their programme, and that School Direct Salaried trainees are also likely to be hired either by the school where they are training or another local school without an advert appearing.  As a result, these trainees can be discarded from the pool of trainees available to schools unable to access these programmes. In addition, it is worth reducing the remaining number by five per cent to allow for those that don’t complete their training programme on the higher education, SCITT and School direct fee routes.

Taking all these variables into account, the picture is broadly similar to this point in 2015. There are unlikely to be enough trainees in the ‘free pool’ to satisfy demand in business studies; design and technology – despite slightly better recruitment than last year; English – where we have concerns that the distortion produced by both Teach First and the School Direct Salaried numbers may make it difficult for schools in some parts of the country to recruit a teacher –this is a subject where the regional breakdown of recruitment into training would be especially helpful. Although the mix of science teachers may not be what schools need, the total of trainees may be sufficient across the country, even if not regionally. The same is true in mathematics.

In PE, art and probably languages, there should be sufficient trainees to meet demand. In other subjects, we need to see how schools will schools respond to curriculum changes and funding pressures before making a judgement. However, geography, music, IT and RE schools seeking teachers may struggle towards the end of the year, if 2016 follows the pattern of 2016.

Regionally, despite the presence of Teach First together with the School Direct Salaried places, we expect schools outside these programmes to struggle in London and the Home Counties when it comes to recruitment of main scale teachers. As these are the parts of the country with the greatest concentration of independent schools, the demand for teachers from these schools is an additional pressure in the marketplace.

Teachvac has a new service this year that allows us to provide advice on salary levels offered in the marketplace. This is not yet a free service, but the team are happy to discuss details with anyone interested. 2016 looks like being another interesting and challenging year for teacher recruitment.

 

The Select Committee and teacher supply

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Yesterday morning was an interesting experience. I spend forty minutes alongside three other leading authorities on teacher preparation and supply appearing in front of the House of Commons Education Select Committee. This august body was taking evidence about the current state of recruitment into the profession and employment opportunities for teachers.

As might be expected, the general tone from everyone, except the Minister in the final session, was gloomy with the emphasis on targets not met and the challenges schools face when looking for new teaching staff. The Minister was right to emphasise the increased number of teachers in the profession, but along with the data on entrants to training he must ensure civil servants provide clarity on the basis for the figures. Did his comparison with last year exclude or include Teach First numbers in both sets of numbers he quoted. It would be unhelpful if 2014 data didn’t include Teach First but 2015 did, since the comparison wouldn’t have been based on a similar measure. This can be checked when the transcript appears.

What is also interesting is the data revealed in an answer Lord Nash gave on the 7th December to a written question in the House of Lords. From that information it is possible to identify success against target for the four key routes into teaching; higher education; SCITTs; School Direct fee and School Direct salaried. The rates are important because some of the routes into teaching provide more trainees for the free pool of job hunters that aren’t necessarily going to be snapped up by those responsible for preparing them for the profession than do other routes.

There is an interesting debate to be had around any route that is especially selective in its entry standards and then offers employment to all those on that route into teaching. This would leave others schools not so fortunate with a much more limited access to the trainee market. One solution would be for all schools to become involved in training. However, it only matters if some routes are better at filling the places allocated.

The table shows the percentage of allocated places filled in 2015 as reported in the answer to the PQ

  HEI SCITT SD – Fee SD – Salaried
Total 88 65 54 70
Primary 104 77 71 89
Secondary 77 57 45 56
English 142 57 60 82
Mathematics 72 51 34 47
D&T 42 47 31 77
History 108 82 85 79
Geography 93 40 38 45

On the basis of the figures in the table, there is a risk that recruitment controls in history and English might create a shortfall in 2016 with knock-on effects on the teacher labour market in 2017 if the same pattern were to develop as last year.

The effects of the controls will need to be watched very carefully in case school recruitment doesn’t take over from higher education courses once they have been capped. Recruitment controls rely upon applicants wanting to enter teaching by any route and not being wedded to a university course. Should that not prove the case, and there was a discussion about how far trainees were now prepared to travel to study to enter the profession during the Select Committee session, further action might need to be taken quickly.

Of course, allocations aren’t the TSM number and are set high in some subjects, but why did schools only manage to fill a third of their allocations in design & technology. In mathematics, might the bursary provide a better return to some candidates than the salaried route in terms of effort and cash on offer?

Hopefully, as the recruitment round for 2016 unfolds there will be room for dialogue between the DfE and other partners, even if it might have to be managed through the Select Committee.

My evidence to the Select Committee can be read on their page devoted to the inquiry at: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/education-committee/supply-of-teache rs/written/24299.html

Recruitment Controls on ITE part 2

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Earlier in the week I estimated it might be some time next week when recruitment controls would be introduced in PE. I speculated that the university providers in the North West might be the first to receive the email from the NCTL imposing these controls. After looking at the data issued today from UCAS at, https://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/dcs_03_05nov2015.pdf I am inclined to think that by the end of this week HEIs across the country may be told to put on the brakes and some schools may also be receiving warnings that the position in their region is such as to bring recruitment under close scrutiny. Controls across the board in PE may not be far off being imposed.

Viewing the UCAS data showed some 1,035 applicants are already in the system looking for a place on a PE programme. However, as this is from the table that measures applicants by course type, UCAs staff have confirmed to me that some applicants have applied to more than one route leading to over-counting in relation to actual applicant numbers.  As another UCAS table shows applicants at 670 and that number is the more accurate figure for the number of bodies that have applied. Even so, this means that within a short period of the admissions process opening applicants for more than two thirds of places have applied to train as a PE teacher.

That’s applicants, not applications. As the Teacher Supply Model figure for 2016 showed only 999 places required to be filled – forget the 2,166 places allocated as that number is now irrelevant – there are already more applicants than trainees needed in the system: would that it were so in Physics as well where, despite the generous bursaries and scholarships, there are only around 30 recorded applicants already in the system.

I am sure that there will be a rush by HEIs that don’t have any safety net under the present system, unlike the School Direct providers, to make offers as fast as possible before they are capped. Now with the demand for both men and women to teach the subject this may pose some problems for schools in 2017 if there is a considerable gender imbalance as a result of a large number of early offers being made.

One solution might have been to create a closing date, as there used to be in primary, to allow all applicants that applied by that date to be considered. It wasn’t a perfect solution, and was open to abuse, but it did neutralise the benefit of an early application and allowed the best candidates from a time period to be recruited. Still, it is too late to do anything like that now.

As expected, English, history and primary have attracted significant numbers of early applications, but not in the same league as in PE. It seems that even the prospect of £9,000 and no help with living costs isn’t putting of applicants to train as a PE teacher. Interestingly, we don’t have a breakdown of the age profile of those that have applied to see whether it mainly undergraduates or career changers that form the bulk of those that applied when the admissions system opened. My hunch would be more undergraduates than thirty somethings.

I am not sure how often I will look at these figures because of the time it takes, but possibly once a month. Daily figures are a long way from the situation in 2013 when even publishing the data in August revealing a possible crisis meant big trouble for the writer of this blog. But then the world didn’t know what they know now about teacher supply.

i am also grateful to UCAS staff for drawing my attention to the need to be clear about applicants and their choices and individual applicants as a body of individuals.

An end to vocational courses in secondary schools?

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I wonder at what point the national employer organisations will wake up to the current trends in the staffing of vocational subjects in our secondary schools. The recent announcement of the bursary levels for those entering teacher preparation courses in 2016 show the removal of the bursary from design and technology students with a 2:2 degree; it was previously £4,000 for such students. This is despite the collapse in trainee numbers in recent years.

Now TeachVac, our job board for teachers, http://www.teachvac.co.uk has recorded far more vacancies in the subject than there are trainees this year, so cutting the bursary is somewhat odd.  Even odder is the absence of Business studies from the bursary list. This is despite TeachVac showing far more vacancies than there were trainees in 2015, with shortages reported almost across the country.

Despite the likely increase in teachers’ salaries in 2016, the funding for School Direct salaried places in design and technology, along with many other subjects, has been held at 2015 levels; a cut in real terms.

However, the effect isn’t ’s severe as it is in primary, where the funding per School Direct salaried trainee has be reduced by between a third and 40% depending on the location of the school. Along with the cuts in the primary bursary, this seems like a high risk strategy that is presumably based on an improvement in recruitment in 2015. Changing the rates from year to year can cause a yo-yo effect that isn’t helpful to either training providers or schools that recruit NQTs. TeachVac staff will be monitoring the UCAS data for evidence of the effects of these changes on the primary sector now we also handle primary vacancies as well as secondary ones.

Returning to the issue of staffing secondary subjects that might feed through employees to the wealth creating part of the economy in the future, I wonder whether the cutbacks are because Ministers only really care about the EBacc subjects and don’t understand the value of early encouragement to think of the value of design and technology for careers in manufacturing, textiles, electronics, the catering and food trades and many other possible jobs not yet imagined.

Perhaps there is a policy to direct such ‘applied’ subjects to 14-18 studio schools and UTCs leaving other secondary schools to concentrate on non-vocational science and art subjects for those wanting to enter higher education at eighteen? This might be a back-door method of creating a selective school system for the 14-18 age group, with most of the new schools being aligned to the further education sector. Of course, it could all be a mistake, and the next ITT census, due out later this month, will show my worries about recruitment in these subjects are a mere chimera.

Along with these subjects that are obviously out of favour, both art and music and the humanities other than pure history and geography don’t seem to feature in the forward thinking of this government. I wonder it is time to ask what the government is trying to achieve with its teacher supply policy for the remainder of this parliament. Perhaps it knows something about the health of the economy we don’t.

Big Brother

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The announcement earlier in the week of the Teacher Supply Model numbers and recruitment thresholds for teacher training in 2016/17 was rather overshadowed by the decision on a selective school expansion programme in Kent. That is an issue I have written about previously on this blog and may well return to again. However, others have already made the case eloquently about how backward a move this is in reality.

But, to return to teacher training because, despite Michael Gove’s assertion that teaching doesn’t need any preparation for the job, most of us think it isn’t as easy to walk into a classroom as in to a job in either of the Houses of Parliament.

The key message from this week’s announcement is; more maths training places; a similar number of places to this year’s training numbers in other EBacc subjects and fewer places in the non-EBacc subjects. In primary, the big growth period is now over unless there is a change in teacher numbers in employment, perhaps through more departures from the profession among young women that make up a sizable proportion of the primary school teaching force these days.

Why I have headed this blog ‘big brother’ is because, although there are no allocations this year, there are recruitment control thresholds that protect Teach First -included in the Teacher Supply Model number for the first time, at least publicly – and School Direct plus SCITT routes. As there are no published thresholds for higher education providers, they are at risk if the school routes recruit quickly above the minimum recruitment level. This is only likely to be a possibility in history, PE, primary and according to the government English – although I think that less likely.

In order to monitor what is happening and prevent over-recruitment that might stop schools reaching their minimum threshold the National College can issue compulsory stop notices on further offers to providers. This effectively bans future offers being made, although presumably allowing replacements for anyone that drops out? The College will also monitor the UCAS system on a daily basis for the number of offers being made and may also step in if regional patterns are distorted in such a manner as to risk leaving parts of the country short of teachers in certain subjects.

Interestingly, there seems little concern for the applicants in this process. I would advise applicants against booking tickets to interviews until the day before in case the provider is suddenly capped, especially if it is a university PGCE course. Indeed, it might not be fanciful to suggest that even during an interview a candidate could be told by the provider that they no longer have any places left because it has been ‘capped’.

However, for this to happen, even in most of the non-EBacc subjects recruitment in 2016-17 is likely to have to improve on that expected to be recorded in the 2015 ITT census that is to be published next month, so it will only really worry those applying in the subjects listed above where providers are likely to find it easy to recruit to the TSM number.

Finally, I have concerns about whether we really need to train 999 PE teachers in 2016-17 and only 252 business studies teachers. This is based upon the TeachVac vacancy data http://www.teachvac.co.uk were have recorded this year, but that may well be something to discuss with the statisticians.

Belt tightening in evidence

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Life is beginning to return to normal after the summer break. The final figures on teacher training offers will appear later this week. However, last week the government published the last data of education spending under the coalition with the figures from the Section 251 budgets for planned expenditure by schools and local authorities’ services for this financial year.

With the split between academies and maintained schools comparing between authorities on schoolings remains a bit of a challenge. In other children’s services it is still relatively clear what is spent by local authorities on say, youth justice or fostering. However, now that the majority of academies are what is known as ‘recoupment academies’ this means some comparison between per capita spending across the country is once again possible.

Overall spend per capita on the individual school budget at local authority levels has seen an increase in expected expenditure from £4,361 to £4,408 per capita, up by £47 or a little over one per cent. This may well help to explain why schools feel that their budgets have effectively been cut, since increased government take back through pension contributions and increased National Insurance contributions have been greater than the increase in income. To some extent this has also reduced the recruitment crisis in some places by diverting funds away from employing staff.

The local authority per capita expected spend doesn’t distinguish between spending in the primary and secondary sectors in the government’s aggregate figures, so it is impossible to tell whether the authorities where spending per capita is expected to be lower in 2015-16 than in 2014-15 is across the board or in only one of the sectors. What is interesting, however, is that five of the bottom ten ranked authorities, or five of nine if Middlesbrough is excluded on the basis that the figures don’t look credible, have selective secondary schools across the authority. Additionally, three of these authorities appear to have a lower per capita spend in 2015—16 than in the previous year. Now, as academies have a different financial year to maintained schools, that may account for some of the difference, but it isn’t clear whether or not that is the case form the data as presented.

Another interesting feature is that per capita spend in Inner London has also declined from £5,842 to £5,759 per capita in 2015-16. The drop isn’t across the board, but is greatest in Camden and Kensington and Chelsea. Tower Hamlets still tops the list with a spend of £6,842 per capita, down by some nine pounds per capita, but still some £350 ahead of Hackney, the next highest. (These figures exclude the single school in the City of London and on the Isles of Scilly where figures are much higher. However, it isn’t clear why the primary school in the City of London should receive £600 per pupil more than the average for schools in Tower Hamlets.)

Indications are that with increasing pupil numbers and the government’s commitment to austerity the 2016-17 budgets now being assembled at the macro level aren’t likely to be any more generous than this year, and might put schools under even more pressure at the per capita level. That will make free services like our TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk more valuable to schools than spending money on services that often increase in price every year regardless of inflation levels and technological changes.

Admissions cause some concerns

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Now the website of the School Adjudicators isn’t high on my regular websites to visit. However, I recently paid it a visit to read the decision about admissions to Banbury Academy in Oxfordshire. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/banbury-academy The Adjudicator partially upheld the complains from another school in the town and the Conservative controlled county council in a detailed 23 page decision covering a whole range of admissions issues.

On my visit, I couldn’t help but notice that the Adjudicator had been a series of decisions through the summer. Indeed, since the end of July, the Adjudicator has upheld 13 complains and partially upheld a further nine, making 22 complaints upheld in full or part compared with 13 where complaints were not upheld. The majority of complaints not upheld were against admission arrangements in the primary sector. These were either for individual schools or in three cases arrangements made by local authorities. A complaint was upheld against one authority and partially upheld against another.
Academies were concerned in twelve of the complaints upheld either in full or in part and only in four cases were such complaints not upheld among the decisions reported upon since the end of July. There was a complaint against one ‘free’ school reported during this period, but it was not upheld.

Reading the decisions shows just what a minefield school admissions have become. They are set to become even worse if the rule about siblings is changed by the government to give them priority over children living near to a school. I recall a case of a popular village school where families would move in a rent a property, secure a place for their first child and then move to a cheaper location to buy a house secure in the knowledge they would be able to send other children to the school. The case was drawn to my attention when a five-year old living opposite the school gates had to be transported by taxi to another school as there was no place available at the local school. Now, the Conservative view seems to be that these schools can just expand. However, unless the rules on funding are changed, primary schools will be faced with either larger classes or cutting expenditure elsewhere to fund the places for siblings. The third alternative is for the local authority to find an alternative school and, if necessary, pay the transport costs to taxi young children around to satisfy the needs of other parents.

However, there are a group of parents that aren’t catered for in the present handling of the parental choice rules. These are families where one parent, and especially the mother, is not fully fit and has limited mobility for whatever reason. There is often no way in the admissions arrangements to handle such a situation because appeal panels aren’t not allowed discretion. In some other circumstances the use of the word ‘normally’ would provide room for manoeuvre, as it also would in handling sibling requests where parents don’t live as close to the school as other pupils unable to access the school. Providing panels gave reasons that could be tested this might help deal with some of the anomalies in the present system, as happens with transport appeals.

This problem is that when the number of pupils is on the increase not everyone will be satisfied with the outcome, whatever system is adopted.