Free School to Exclude Poorer Children Nearby

Local Schools Network's picture
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This article is reproduced with permission from the No to Kings School, Hove web site. It describes how the decision of the school to base its catchment area on its original site (2.5 miles from the current one) excludes the local poorer community:

 

At last night’s King’s School prospective parent evening at Aldrington School, the King’s team admitted that the chances of getting their preferred site of King Alfred were “very low”. Despite this, the school will still use King Alfred as the location for their catchment area. Up to fifty percent of places at King’s School will be open to children from families of no faith or other faith. These will be offered in order of distance from the school. The school’s prospectus states:

“…if the school becomes oversubscribed, which is likely, half of the available places will be offered in order of distance from the school (in the first year, we will use our preferred site, the King Alfred, as our reference point for this) and the remaining half will be offered using a church reference.”

We think it is very cynical to use the more affluent King Alfred catchment, rather than their likely actual location. Brighton and Hove Council have offered the school Portslade Sixth Form Site – about two and a half miles from King Alfred. The families that live close to King Alfred are unquestionably more affluent than those who live in Portslade.

So how does this exclude poorer children? We know there are no shortage of parents prepared to feign a faith to get their children into what they perceive to be a better school. Typically these parents are from the so-called sharp-elbowed middle class. King’s School will also prioritise those from more affluent homes for their non-faith intake. Combine these two ways of prioritising the majority of their pupils and King’s School will effectively have a gated community of non-diverse, middle class children to teach. It’s a scandalous abuse of public funds – and completely at odds with the stated intent of Free Schools to help improve education in deprived areas.

We’ve noticed a question on the King’s School Facebook page from a Portslade-based parent querying the use of King Alfred as the point to measure distance. It’s five days old and still remains unanswered. Not surprising King’s School might not want to draw attention to this particular sleight of hand.

We should point out that King’s School may yet be located at King Alfred, and there is the possibility of their finding their own premises much closer to King Alfred than the Portslade Sixth Form Site, however for now it feels very cynical and self-serving.
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Comments

Ben Taylor's picture
Fri, 19/10/2012 - 12:19

Have you checked these figures are equivalent to the DfE source, because their definition for both sets of data is, "Percentage known to be eligible for and claiming free school meals"?

The % you quote are for those eligible, but not necessarily claiming. Can that be confirmed?

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Fri, 19/10/2012 - 12:37

Janet


Are you sure these figures apply to all schools in the borough (including academies)?

I ask because the LBHF publication "Table Showing Individual Pupil Premium Allocations per School" lists only maintained schools.

(Sorry I can't link to this PDF, but you can download it by putting the title into Google).

Janet Downs's picture
Fri, 19/10/2012 - 12:48

Ben - can I suggest that you contact LBHF yourself as I did. You could ask how many pupils in LBHF are actually claiming FSM. If there is a big gap between those eligible and those claiming, perhaps you could ask LBHF, even individual schools, what they are doing to ensure eligible pupils claim the free school meals they are entitled to.

When you've found the answers, you can post them here.

Janet Downs's picture
Fri, 19/10/2012 - 13:10

Ricky - Local Authority maintained schools are paid the Pupil Premium by their LA who receive a specific grant based on January school census figures for pupils registered as eligible (not just claiming) for FSM in reception to Year 11. The Pupil Premium for academies was paid via the Young Peoples’ Learning Agency which has now closed and been replaced by the Education Funding Agency (EFA). It is likely that any LA list giving the amount of Pupil Premium allocated to each school would only contain LA maintained schools as LAs would have no way of knowing how much Pupil Premium was received by individual academies.

However, if you think that the figures I gave above and which were provided by LBHF only refer to FSM eligibility in schools maintained by LBHF, then perhaps you could ask LBHF to clarify the situation. You can then post the clarification here.

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/premium/b0076063/pp

Ben Taylor's picture
Fri, 19/10/2012 - 17:51

To Janet

Since the % FSM for eligible and claiming secondary school pupils in LBHF is either 30.5 or 32 according to DfE and Toby Young reports 28% for WLFS, he is at most 4.5% out.

You cannot rely on a figure reporting 40% eligibility of secondary school pupils for FSM in LBHF, but not containing any information about claiming FSM, in order to make this statement: "The 28% figure quoted in the article linked by Ben is, therefore, incorrect."

I believe your report of the figure of 40% and trust LBHF. This is not the issue. Neither is the discrepany in underclaimants versus potential claimants and the social undesirability of this.

You are adding up oranges and lemons to arrive at a sum of pears. You are relying on this reasoning to make a statement which we also cannot rely on.

Ben Taylor's picture
Fri, 19/10/2012 - 13:07

You quoted the figures from LBHF and said that Toby Young was therefore inaccurate in his claim in the Commentator. However the information you quoted is not necessarily equivalent as described above.

So we cannot conclude that your statement regarding the difference between your LBHF figures and Toby Young's is correct, namely, "The 28% figure quoted in the article linked by Ben is, therefore, incorrect".

You are making this claim, not me. I think the duty is on you to clarify with LBHF.

Janet Downs's picture
Sat, 20/10/2012 - 06:49

Ben - I take your point that there is likely to be a difference between the percentage of pupils who are eligible for FSM and those who are claiming. The original article spoke of pupils "on school meals" which I suppose means "claiming." In which case, you can either (a) find this figure from Hammersmith and Fulham yourself, or (b) give the source of the figures in the original article with link.

As the figures in the article were so confidently expressed, I should think option (b) would probably be the quickest.

And, Ben, I am not a statistician, but 4.5% gap between 28% and 32% is actually a gap of 4%. However, if the 4 is expressed as a fraction of 32, then that's an error margin of 12.5% (I think). Perhaps Paul Brown, the statistician who posted on the "Statistics watchdog" thread could explain margins of error, how they are calculated (preferably avoiding those fearsome equations) and what margin of error is considered statistically acceptable.

Janet Downs's picture
Wed, 24/10/2012 - 14:47

Ben - Latest FSM figures from Hammersmith and Fulham:

Uptake of the eligibility
Primary 85%
Secondary 78%

The eligibility of primary school pupils was 37%, so 85% of 37% is 30.45%. So, the percentage of primary school pupils in Hammersmith and Fullham who are eligible for free school meals AND claiming is 30.45%.

The eligibility of secondary school pupils was 40%, so 78% of 40% is 31.2%. So, the percentage of secondary school pupils in Hammersmith and Fulham who are eligible for free school meals AND claiming is 31.2%.

According to Hammersmith and Fulham's own figures, then, the 28% figure quoted in the article linked by Ben which said the average percentage of secondary pupils eligible for AND claiming free school meals in H&F is incorrect.

Unless my sums are wrong, of course. I didn't use a calculator.

Janet Downs's picture
Fri, 19/10/2012 - 13:16

No, Ben, it is not my "duty" to clarify the figures with LBHF. If you wish to discover whether the figures are "equivalent" or not then you can do so. And it is not my "claim" that the figures for secondary school eligibility in LBHF is 40%. That is the figure that was given to me this morning by LBHF in response to a Freedom of Information request.

If you think the secondary figure of 40% is unreliable, you can contact LBHF yourself and ask for the source of the data. Or perhaps you could ask Toby Young where he found the data and helpfully provide a link.

I look forward to reading your answer in about three working days.

Ben Taylor's picture
Thu, 25/10/2012 - 22:10

Yes I think that if the figures are correct that the secondary figure is about 32% versus that reported by TY of 28%. 32% also agrees with one of the DfE figures.

It's still not a bad effort from WLFS and if we say the cohort is 120 that means they should have 4% more on FSM to hit the average, which in numbers of children is 1.2* 4 = 4.8, rounded to 5.

The best thing is if he now answers for himself since there may be a reason he is right such as a moving target. I understand their % is better than many other LBHF schools.

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