School Admissions Consultation - Belleville Post Reply

[monaco]

My understanding is that the council proposed revised admission policy (ie creating a zone 1 and a zone 2 priority areas) has been declined and that the council will now review their proposals.

In the meantime, the status quo prevails so for entry in Sept 2011, the current policy is still valid, meaning that children will be admitted according to distance to the main Belleville site.

For Sept 2011, the extra children who were admitted this year in prevision for the extension and are currently in Reception will move to the Forthbridge site as it will then be ready (it wasn't ready when they started school this September). A new Reception class will start straight from there.
So, you will have two classes there: one Reception form and one Year 1 form.

Not sure if they'll have the time to issue a new policy that has been reviewed, got consultation and voted in time for Sept 2012.

[cynic]

MGMidget you wrote:
"I did take offense to remarks from your group regarding all the four wheel drive cars that everyone in the Northcote area supposedly owns"

I personally did not say anything about 4x4s
The only comment that I can recall made about them was actually by Cllr James Cousins. (which was followed by some laughter & comments from the gallery which I didn't make out). As a Councillor, Cllr James Cousin is obviously independent, so I suggest you address your remarks to him.
Just to be clear we are not some super organised "group". On Wed the gallery was made up of residents who were effected by this scheme.

I would however agree that the public gallery did get a little boisterous on a couple of occasions. This was of course a shame but if you think about the history of this complaint and the way the council has handled it over all, then perhaps people letting their passions run away from them is understandable

[cynic]

Monaco - I think you have summarised the situation for 2011 perfectly.
These rejected proposals were only ever going to effect admissions in 2012. My understanding is that the deadline for setting those arrangements is 15April2011 so it is unlikely that any new ideas could be discussed and consulted upon in time for that, so yes sadly we are looking at 2013 admissions now.

I would say there are three clear issues for the area (in no particular order)
(i) Looking at sibling entry situation at over-subscribed schools in order to free up more places;
(ii) issue of access for school places for people living south of Broomwood;
(iii) issue of children living next to the new Forthbridge site having no access to it.

I would say that the council has done a terrible kack-handed job of communicating and trying to address these issues, eventually lumping them into one very complicated iill thought-out consultation.

Looking at each issue in turn:

(i) I would agree there is clearly still an ongoing issue about sibling entry at over-subscribed schools. Clearly many people wanted to address this by voting in the recent consultation for Priority Areas and I agree its a shame that voting procedure meant these were rejected too. These could of course be re-visited.
Sadly the Council tried to impose this on a single school alone (Belleville) which was obviously going to get objections from the Governors;

(ii) The issue of future school places for people living south of Broomwood Rd, is a serious one. 53 people responded about it in the recent consultation and I have never been anything other than sympathetic to it.
Sadly the council's solution to this was to add a second area to their Priority plans which was not actually consulted on.
I don't think any reasonable person would disagree that the council acting in this way was outrageous, but this doesn't take away from the fact it is real issue that needs to be considered in any future plans.
(the council data also misleads on the actual projections for this despite due to a lastminute, similarly outrageous, fudge to its data)
At the meeting I recognised this and also the fact that the council has simply washed its hands of influencing the school actually closest to this area i.e. Honeywell School
Surely any discussion of solutions for this area must include Honeywell?

(iii) The simple unfairness of the Forthbridge Rd situation.
I think I have said enough about that!
In June the council chose to ignore over 479 objections but now objections have finally been recognised (Of 304 responses from the Shaftesbury Ward, 301 were against the recent proposals). If you look at any school in the country, the only fair solution must include some element of local admission.

We would really like to have positive discussions about how to solve all these problems with all people in a reasonable & open manner, based on facts and data we can all agree on

[cynic]

Actually MGMidget I would like apologise to you for anything you felt was inappropriate said by the public gallery on Wed night. Not that I can really claim to speak for them, but I can assure you that any such comment does not speak for all of us near Forthbridge.

I have just looked at the tone of some of the comments on the forum about the new secondary school and I shudder.
On this chat I am very pleased we have managed to keep things quite civilised, everyone is to be congratulated on that

[custardy]

cynic, that is a really helpful and clear oversight of what the current problems are. I agree with your points

I would add to the Council's list:

- considering how best to ensure that where areas of high-density primary school (mainly EYFS and KS1) pupils exist, that they can attend a school local to them. This of course is what the Belleville expansion sets out to do, but that seems to have got lost amidst sibling policy and priority zones.

- considering how changing the sibling policy at Belleville may actually result in the the school becoming the middle class BTC enclave it is often, misguidedly, thought to be.

- considering why Northside parents, who have places available at Wix, and other schools, are rejecting these schools. ie how to make those schools as good as Belleville.

In other words, a whole-borough strategic look at primary school provision and standards. While they're about it they could do the same for secondary provision....

[cynic]

Thanks Custardy,

- I think your 3rd point is really important - the weakness in surrounding schools is a clearly big driver of the excess demand for Belleville & Honeywell
(Wix for example is improving rapidly but I agree that does not seem to be reflected in place take-up. High View still has vacancies so is in a less-good place).
Incidentally I think the council has a school mentoring programme called Good to Great, but I dont know much about it

- Your 2nd point, lines up to a large part with the Belleville Governors objections.
http://www.belleville-school.org.uk/dat ... 1110v2.pdf
In 2010 Belleville admitted 30pupils to in-year vacancies and I understand argument then made is this:
(i) these children are often from "out of area" and as such tend to be from less affluent areas and can significantly improve the diversity of the school
AND
(ii) If any change to the sibling rule was made this would deter such families from taking these in-year vacancies

Now in-year vacanacies are offered by distance (& a question was asked on Wed eve about that).
I for one would welcome further evidence on these two points

In particular I have heard many people make the rejoinder that Belleville is such a sought-after school that they dont think (ii) would actually occur. This may be hard to evidence either way, but it might be possible.
I am sure more data could be presented on the first point

To be clear I am not disputing these things just asking for evidence that can elevate them to agreed facts
e.g. I know it's not quite the same thing but it's hard to find any recent on Belleville's free school meals data

[monaco]

100% agree with you Custardy.

And yes, Cynic, you are right: good to see that we are maintaining a civilized debate, acknowledging each other's point of view and trying to get the data right.

Can you elaborate on your point about the last minute twist to data for the South of Broomwood area ?

[cynic]

The data point is very detailed, here goes:

Place Projection data is referred to in the results paper of the recent consult 11-75 in point 15 and the details are in Appendix 3.

http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/moderngov/ ... x?ID=12798

The council have seen fit to discuss retention rate (the ratio of births to reception pupils)
This retention rate is (unsurprisingly enough) increasing over the
last two years in Northcote but (again unsurprisingly) decreasing in
Shaftesbury over the same period.
So the results paper introduces "two scenarios" for this where
basically for Scenario1 they use a higher retention rate for Northcote
vs AND a lower one for Shaftesbury (than in Scenario2)
i.e. Scenario 1 makes the demand for places in Northcote look stronger vs Shaftesbury than Scenario 2

Now you look at page 5 you can see that the data for planning area 4B
(note you have to add back in the data from Balham Ward, 30 places, on page 6 to convert the Northcote data to Planning Area 4B data)
This on page 5 matches that of Scenario2

Indeed Scenario 2 (two year average) is what the council standardly used
e.g. Back in 8th Nov10 the council were presented with data as part of
paper 10-846 and THAT DATA EXACLY MATCHES Scenario2
Here it is
http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/moderngov/ ... x?ID=12235

And indeed to the best of my knowledge they do this on ALL papers going back about 18months

So what does this actually mean?

1) Well this audit trail shows that "this Scenario 1" has been
introduced since 8thNov10
I would say this is A FUDGE FACTOR
(An extra variable introduced and then shamelessly tweaked after the
fact to justify a viewpoint)
Quite shameless really!

2) Without this Scenario 1, the place projections of Scenario2 (i.e.
the ones they have used all along), in fact show there would be more
projected surplus places in Northcote than in Shaftesbury (this under
the current expansion plan)
i.e. the council's own methodology actually allows for a small
amount of places to be left open for local admission.

3) Obviously such long-term projections never actually come to pass as
people move to be near good schools, but this "model" is what the council have argued in the pasy to justify their planning decision. They have now a patently tweaked this model.

[besin]

Livegreen, I agree with you. It would be good to pass a Freedom of Information request to our lovely council to find out the cost of this useless consultation. And to compare it with the proposed savings on library closures.

In fact, nothing has changed. The council just gained another year to do what ever they want with Belleville admissions despite the sound opposition from FBR residents. There is no guarantee that they will not do it again next year.

I still wonder why all Shaftesbury councillors suddenly got so interested in this "grab the school" project? It is really strange because they all knew about those controversial plans but did not do a lot in 2010.

[MGMidget]

In all fairness to the education committee of the Council who were driving this proposal I think several of them did their best in the meeting to make the case for getting the proposals approved. Its just a shame that things got so far before they were vetoed. At least the council is trying to address these issues, albeit not successfully at the moment.

[MGMidget]

Cynic

I've tried to plough through the data you referred to regarding projected pupil numbers and retention rates.

Firstly, in the latest paper presented to the Education Committee, they make the point that if the two year average retention rates for both wards is taken (scenario 2, the one you prefer) then the pupil projections show a small number of surplus places in Shaftesbury against a deficit of 0.5 FE (half a class) in Northcote Ward until 2016/17 "were these places not to be allocated to local children" (presumably they mean those in Northcote Ward). So they are making the point that if places are allocated to children near Forthbridge Road there will be a surplus of places in Shaftesbury and a deficit in Northcote Ward.

The situation is worse if the last year's figures pupil numbers are used as the basis for the projections rather than a two-year average (scenario 1 which you are challenging) but nevertheless there is still a potential problem with scenario 2, if the council's analysis is correct.

As it looks likely that a consultation will now be with regards to 2013 entry rather than 2012 there will be time to see what happens with pupil numbers in the next school year which may help with future pupil projections. This may help to build a picture of whether there is likely to be spare capacity in the Northcote area and whether pupil numbers are increasing in Shaftesbury ward.

Perhaps it would also be useful for the council to look at pupil numbers and projections for the areas of proposed priority zones (if priority zones are to be proposed in another consultation) rather than just looking at ward figures.

[cynic]

MGmidget, you make three points.

Firstly
Your quote is from paragraph 15 of the results paper 11-75 and I pointed out at the meeting on Wed that is very misleadingly phrased!
Yes scenario2 shows a small number of surplus places in Shaftesbury against a deficit of 0.5 FE (half a class) in Northcote Ward until 2016/17 "were these places not to be allocated to local children"
You have been misled by that very phrasing.

The current plan is to award the entire class of Forthbridge places to the Northcote area i.e. this makes total 210 places in Northcote Ward (120 Belleville, 90 Honeywell) there will actually be a surplus of approx half a class in the Northcote Ward.
All the actual data is in the appendix where the current plan is assumed and positive numbers indicate a surplus.
So under current plan there will actually be a surplus of approx half a class in the Northcote Ward. Yes there will be a similar sized surplus of places in the Shaftesbury ward. I do not dispute that.
The sentence above from paragraph 15 is very hard to follow, the data is much clearer.

i.e. This shows that all the projections show that the Northcote ward only actually requires approx half of the 30 disputed Forthbridge places

Secondly
we seem to agree that by introducing Scenario1 ( i.e. by shamelessly tweaking the numbers ) the demand looks greater in Northcote than in Shaftesbury.
I would again point out that in 18months of Papers on place projections the council have never before used such a tweak, so what does that tell us?

Thirdly
I think whatever these projections show and whatever actually happens, I think we all know ALL the places at Belleville will be taken up, unsurprisingly!
There will never actually be "surplus places" at Belleville - of course not, so your suggestion that seemingly we wait a year and see what the data looks like then is totally inconsistent with this kind of modelling.
You cannot make a projection model in order to try and make a decision and then re-jig the terms of that projection halfway thru.

Here is a simple statement:
The council have a standard birth rate model which they have used for years to plan all primary school place demand in the Borough. The Council have even won awards for the use of this in their planning. Under this the demand for places in the Northcote Ward does not require ALL 30 of the new Forthbridge Rd places, in fact only about half of them
This is black and white in the data they have presented

[cynic]

Just FYI a release on last Wed's meeting:

Belleville School Plan Sent Back to the Drawing Board


Wandsworth Council's Education Committee has thrown-out a controversial new admissions scheme proposed for Belleville Primary School.
Instead it has asked Wandsworth Children’s Services Department to go back and “investigate other admission solutions that avoid a situation where families adjacent to <the Forthbridge Rd school site> have no access to the school”.
This second site is to be used for expansion by the popular Belleville School (based at Webbs Rd) from 2011. Residents near Forthbridge Rd have been campaigning for almost a year for a right of access for local children to this site.

Last Wednesday evening the Committee was presented with the results of the second consultation within a year on the matter. This included a recommendation from Children’s Services for two ranked priority admission areas for the Belleville School.
The Committee heard deputations from Ian Hamilton, representing a group of residents near Forthbridge Rd and from Kate Amis the Chair of Belleville Governors, who both objected to the scheme.

All three Shaftesbury ward Councillors - Cllr Guy Senior, Cllr James Cousins & Cllr Jonathan Cook - were present and then spoke passionately against the "unfair" and “complicated” plans. These plans, the latest in a series of council proposals, could have seen children living over a mile away gaining places at the Forthbridge Rd site ahead of children living next door to it.

It was Education Committee member Cllr Cook who tabled the crucial amendment (requesting that other admissions solutions be investigated).
All five speakers and the outcome of the vote itself (6-4) were met with applause and cheers from a packed public gallery.


Campaigner Ian Hamilton said "Finally we have victory for common sense. Thanks to the support of our local councillors and residents we now have a chance to formulate a transparent arrangement that includes some element of local admission to the Forthbridge Rd site – the only solution most people would consider as fair”
He added “The rising demand for school places is creating some difficult situations, but it’s great to see so many residents who care about schools in their area. We really want to work openly with the council, all the local schools, residents and parents to resolve this issue in a positive way"



17 Jan. 11

[cynic]

And you don't have to hear it from me:

http://jamescousins.com/2011/01/rebelli ... dmissions/

[MGMidget]

Cynic,

My point about looking at the pupil numbers and hence the forecasts next year is that if a further set of modelling figures is done for a consultation next year then you'll be able to see what the latest two-year trend is (i.e. next year's 'scenario 2' figures that you prefer). They will do this anyway if they do another consultation. Scenario 1 predictions that you don't like consider whether the situation regarding pupil places around Northcote is getting worse as they obviously were in the last year. If that year is just a blip then the next set of figures will indicate that and we'll see what the two-year trend (the scenario 2 that you prefer) is. There is supposedly a bit of a baby-boom affecting those entering reception from 2011 onwards. I would say it is quite valid to consider different scenarios when trying to predict the future.