Parents to be consulted over plans to change sibling rule Post Reply

[Flowermummy]

20 extra places per year in the BV/HW "bubble" area is actually quite a lot!
More than i would have expected...
Given these figures one cannot say that the proposal won't make a difference.

[balhamite]

Realistically though will it make a difference? Surely parents will just put off moving for a couple of years until the youngest child gets in and then move away after that?

[cynic]

Wandsworth Council's suggestion of an arbitrary 800m distance is clearly a poor idea. Several posters have pointed out obvious flaws in this idea.
How is that the education professionals at Wandsworth have come up with such a poor, seemingly ill-thought out suggestion?

A cynic MIGHT suggest this is yet another consultation where because the suggestion will seem unworkable to most, the council have ensured they will be plenty of objections and the result will be to retain the status quo. The council can then claim "we tried to fix the problem but we consulted parents who didn't want it...what else can we possibly do?"
In the light of the OSAs request for all admission authorities to look at their sibling rules....I do hope this is kinda making sense to everyone.


The only way you can fairly change the sibling rule is slowly, over time.
Where schools are close together and oversubscribed then Geographical Priority Areas (GPAs) are the only practical solution, (where sibling priority only applies if you stay within that area).
You then have to phase this in over time so current parents do not object.
So either you start with a huge GPA (e.g. 2miles) and reduce it over time (giving a clear multi-year plan)
OR you start with the GPA but you insulate any currently admitted children and all their possible futures siblings I.e. You say this new rule only applies to the siblings of children admitted into reception from next year and so on.

It can be useful to aim for the GPA to be defined by obvious physical boundaries e.g. railway lines as then they can actually help to improve the sense of local community surrounding a school.

Honeywell and Belleville are now academies and can define their own admissions. Perhaps someone needs to have a think about how to approach these schools to change their sibling rule.
(I imagine they may regard a parent who lives far away but still sends their children to this school as a parent who really values the school, perhaps in some cases moreso than some living on the doorstep?)

[schoolgatesmum]

So interesting statistics those from Belleville. I have a daughter who started reception in Belleville in 2013. She is a sibling and we live in the 500-800m bracket. But before everyone gets upset, here's the thing - we haven't moved since my son started at Belleville in 2006 and two other children between. And I know of quite a few people who live further away who also haven't moved but got their children in on the sibling priority. Belleville had a much larger catchment then (Honeywell was seen as the school of choice and Belleville was definitely seen as the second choice). It was a much more diverse school then (possibly one of the reasons it wasn't everyone's choice - although it definitely was my first choice for exactly that reason). I really don't think the sibling issue is as much of a problem as everyone keeps saying. But what about this idea of Belleville thinking of opening a new school? That's much more likely to provide more places for people.

[AbbevilleMummy]

Great post Cynic, completely agree with you.

I have been thinking about this more and I really can't see how the current proposals will help. Where are those siblings over 80 away going to go? They still need a school place and the problem is that there aren't enough school places where the large clusters of families are. I imagine that there are a lot of streets that are not within 800 meters of any school. So what happens for those families? They are refused any sort of sibling priority whatsoever?

All that will end up happening in the long run is that families will be forced to cluster within an even smaller area and thus creating even more pressure on the schools within the clusters.

[AbbevilleMummy]

Should read "where are those siblings over 800 meters away going to go?"

[oab]

I am in favour of the WC proposal, perhaps with the addition suggested by GruffaloDad.

I hope Cynic is not right about the consulation being just a box-ticking exercise...
IMO the council puts forward a strong fairness argument (not fair for new pupils living close to the school to be disadvanated vs siblings living far away) whereas some of the objections raised are quite weak (i.e. we needed extra space so we needed to move further).

It is quite obvious that current families with siblings do not support the change, whereas families of new pupils support it.
So overall quite a balanced debate.

[MGMidget]

So a total of 25 siblings at Honeywell and Belleville lived over 800 metres from the school - that is nearly a whole class. Those of us who have lived in the area for a number of years and followed this issue will know the impact that adding an extra class at Belleville had when the school first did this after the catchment had shrunk dramatically to approximately 300 metres. 25 extra spaces for non siblings between the commons is a lot. Presumably the figure of 174 siblings that live over 800 metres from their community school which was quoted in the council's consultation details does not include academies or foundation schools since these are not community schools. Hence the real figure for the borough is likely to be considerably higher.

I welcome Wandsworth Council's attempts to address the problem of local children being shut out of their local school. This problem is set to get worse with forecasts of rising numbers of pre-school aged children so I think something needs to be done. I liked Gruffalodad's suggestion too, if it is workable. I think being allowed to move an extra 400 metres from the school and still keep sibling priority is still quite generous as the Wandsworth housing market is always busy. It allows any family who really want to to find accommodation within that distance. The real issue for many families is they would like lots of choice and perhaps something nicer and cheaper further away - in which case they should chose between the property and losing sibling priority. They would then need to consider whether to do two school runs or move all their children to one school which will probably be nearer to their new home anyway (so less traffic on the roads).

Once you reduce the number of siblings getting priority it should be easier to transfer schools so I think fears that there won't be spaces for older siblings will be unfounded. In any case, checking out the local school situation is something most savvy parents do before they move house. It isn't difficult to check whether there are likely to be spaces before committing to a move.

[AbbevilleMummy]

MGMidget, you make an excellent point re community schools and that the 174 would only include community schools siblings and not the likes of BV, HW, Holy Ghost etc etc.

I've just had a look at the Wandsworth Primary Schools booklet and if you scroll down the list and look at the furthest distance of entry for the community schools, most of them cover quite large distances which would explain why 174 siblings come from over 800m away.

All the complaints made on this website and probably directly to the council largely relate to schools where the council has no say on admission policies and therefore this all feels like a bit of a waste of effort on the council's part and would only end up mostly impacting schools that don't have tiny catchments in the first place!

[Wheresmyschool?]

All the complaints made on this website and probably directly to the council largely relate to schools where the council has no say on admission policies and therefore this all feels like a bit of a waste of effort on the council's part and would only end up mostly impacting schools that don't have tiny catchments in the first place!

I wonder.

I think that if this is a success then it'll be hard for the schools who are academies to ignore it.

Although it may take a while to filter through...

[oab]

Wheresmyschool? - I am of the same view as you.
If WC implement this, there will be a lot of pressure on academies to follow through.
Someone else already mentioned on this thread that the "crow flies" was a WC change that was implemented by Belleville, Honeywell, etc.

[cynic]

Just a note on the "straight line distance" change.

Now mapping technology has improved 'as the crow flies' is a much more preferable way of measuring distance for any admission authority. Most admission authorities in the UK now use it. There's very little chance of any dispute with it, once the point of the school site is defined (industry standard is to use centre of the school).

The previous system was based on " safe walking distance" which as you can see could generate all sorts of problems at very popular schools e.g. more than one school gate/streetlight changes/road crossing changes/ not least that someone had (somewhat arbitrarily) to decide what a safe walk route was (surely different for a 4 yr-old and an 11 yr-old).
So I think Belleville and Honeywell were more than happy to move to this (especially as I'm pretty sure Wandsworth Council do all that distance calculation for them still, but actually they could do it themselves much more easily than the old walking distance method)

[KatherineHepburn]

I agree Schoolgatesmum.
A WHOLE NEW SCHOOL!!
What's that? 60 more spaces in the local area a year??

That thread has fallen off the board....and it hasn't been picked up on here.
So perhaps I'll say it again.
Belleville are looking into opening A NEW SCHOOL IN THE AREA. Why on earth are we still discussing WC's school distance press release? Which will most likely come to nothing and even if it goes ahead free up only a handful of spaces at a selection of borough schools. The most hotly contested will very probably not adopt as you just cannot have siblings being dropped off simultaneously across the borough's schools.
A new school though?? Run by the Belleville team? THAT is interesting.

[supermummy]

I agree with Katherine Hepburn. The proposed new school ( to open sept 2016) will do far more for the schools problem than tinkering with the sibling rule. Isn't this what loads of parents have been crying out for? Really hope they can find a suitable site.

[papagato1]

Agree with MummyMummy. Instead of letting parents fight, the counsil and the government should put more into efforts on their side: have more better schools. Invest more on its people, have more talents working in the sector.

The profession is not being well repected enough. Currently teachers are not being paid well enough. Make the profession much more competitive.

All parents want their children to go to the best schools, most parents can't afford private schools.

The population in London is expected to expand fast over the next few years, the needs of better school is huge.