Frustrated families in Bidford area face fight to get their children a Year 7 place in a local school of their choice
Families in the Bidford area are becoming increasingly frustrated as they face a fight to get their children a Year 7 place in a local school of their choice. GILL SUTHERLAND spoke to concerned parents about the tense situation.
A LACK of school places is leaving some families feeling like second-class citizens.
Those living in Bidford and surrounding villages say they are being left at the bottom of the pile in the desperate scrabble for secondary school places.
Parents say many Year 6 children are not being offered a place at their preferred school, including their allotted priority school – which in a lot of cases is nearby Alcester Academy.
Meanwhile their frustration is further compounded by what they call an unfair system that allows students to commute into Alcester Grammar School from as far a field as south Coventry, Solihull and Moreton-in-Marsh.
This has the effect of pushing up demand at the already hugely oversubscribed academy.
Danny Evans is among frustrated parents of Year 6 children at Dunnington Primary facing an anxious wait to hear which school they will be offered a place for in September.
She said: “Children living in Bidford and the surrounding villages should all be able to go to Alcester Academy – their priority secondary school. In reality, those living closest to the school are prioritised, meaning that children in villages including Bidford and Salford Priors are effectively treated as second class, prevented from attending their own priority school, which is really unfair. Many of them are given places at St Benedict’s, whether they want them or not, and in my opinion no one should be made to attend a faith school if they don’t share that faith.”
Parents in the same plight are being encouraged to petition Stratford MP Manuela Perteghella asking her to investigate solutions to the problem.
Suggestions are: expand Alcester Academy; build a new school in Bidford; and change the catchment for Alcester Grammar School to give priority to children in Alcester and surrounding villages (freeing up around 75 school spaces).
Mum-of-three Lauren Crozier, who lives in Salford Priors, is one of those lobbying the politician for a better deal for her children.
She told the Herald: “I have three children aged 14, 10 and seven. My oldest is at St Benedict’s and struggling – he has various issues. We tried the Alcester and KES grammar schools, and Alcester Academy, but he didn’t get into any of them.
“He ended up only being offered St Benedict’s, even though I didn’t put it down. I am an atheist and strongly believe that I did not want him to go to a religious school. I absolutely respect those with faith, but it’s not for us. I do not want my son to hear that gay people should never have sex, for example.”
She continued: “When my son left Dunnington School, who did an extraordinarily brilliant job, he was raring to leave junior school and desperate to step up to secondary.
“Now he’s having all sorts of problems, and I’m not blaming all of that on the school, but I’m not happy with the way he has been dealt with at a school I never wanted to send him too.
“We have incredibly outdated public school system, it’s completely useless and needs to change to one that encourages good teachers and gives parents choices.”
Ms Crozier has a sense of dread as she now faces getting her ten-year-old enrolled at a secondary.
“My ex-husband has bought a house in Alcester just so that we can try to get our daughter into the academy.”
She added: “Education sets you up for life. My son used to have a sense of pride, and that has been crushed. It makes you feel a failure as a parent.”
Echoing the frustration of parents is headteacher of Alcester Academy Sarah Mellors.
The school’s yearly admission allows for an intake of 130 pupils in Year 7 – however last year there were 407 applications.
Ms Mellors told the Herald: “I continue to be frustrated for local parents who cannot secure a place for their children at the school. The chair of governors and I have engaged with numerous professionals over a long period of time in order to look at the potential expansion of the school and how we might satisfy demand for places.
“Unfortunately, our current site is not big enough to safely accommodate any additional students.”
Pointing to a lack of funding, such as when new housing developers must contribute finance towards community infrastructure, she continued: “The increase in new housing in the local area has not generated any S106 revenue back into local education. And this school is the only south Warwickshire high school not to have any capital injection over recent years.”
Ms Mellors added: “Naturally, we are pleased that parents want to send their children to the school. All stakeholders have worked extremely hard to develop the reputation of the school and future outcomes for young people.
“We are open to hearing how the local authority might intend to satisfy the demand for places and would welcome a meeting to discuss any future plans to do this.”
Also offering her sympathy and support, Dr Perteghella said: “I have been contacted by several families about the issue of oversubscribed local schools, especially for the children of Bidford and surrounding villages.
“Warwickshire County Council, as the local education authority, has a responsibility to ensure there are enough school places – that includes building new schools if needed. Parents and carers wrote to me with some proposals so that children can attend local and easily accessible schools.
“In the first instance I will be writing to the council to explore how the lack of accessible, non-selective school places for families in these villages can be addressed urgently.”
There are plenty of school places – county’s response
Warwickshire County Council education team respond: The county is a diverse mix of urban and rural areas with housing growth in some areas of the county and changing populations in other areas. Our challenge is to help maintain sufficient provision to meet current need and maintain the right level of surplus for future needs at a local level whilst remaining conscious of the financial viability of providers.
Under the admissions code, parents have the right to express a preference for the schools of their choice, which are not necessarily the closest to where they live. Where particular schools are experiencing a period of high demand for places, this will not necessarily result in that school being expanded if there are sufficient places available in other schools in the area.
Alcester and Studley planning area and summary of key points
For the purposes of forecasting and planning school places the county is split in planning areas. These are geographical areas that contain at least one secondary school. The market town of Alcester is in the Alcester and Studley secondary planning area. There are four secondary schools within this planning area, these being Studley High School, Alcester Academy, St Benedict’s Catholic High School and Alcester Grammar School. Whilst Studley village is in the priority area for Studley High School, Alcester and the surrounding villages are in the position of having the choice and diversity of a faith, a selective and a community school within 1.5 miles of each other. All three schools can reasonably be considered to be options for children living within the Alcester area. However, places at Alcester Grammar School are not necessarily available to all local pupils as the school attracts applications from a large area of Warwickshire and beyond the county’s border.
Alcester Grammar School shares its priority area with King Edward VI and Stratford Girls’ Grammar School. The boundary of the priority area is based on a circle with a radius of 16.885 miles drawn from the fountain in Rother Street, Stratford, to the county boundary south of Long Compton. This is a historical boundary that ensured all children living in the south of Warwickshire were included in the priority area, whilst complying with the Greenwich Judgement that maintained schools must not give admissions priority to children for the sole reason that they live within the local authority’s administrative boundary.
As all of the selective schools in Warwickshire are academies, each schools’ admission authority is responsible for reviewing, and determining the priority area as part of the school’s admission arrangements. Warwickshire County Council does work with the selective schools to increase the accessibility of grammar schools to local pupils where possible.
There are more than enough school places across Studley High School, Alcester Academy and St Benedict’s Catholic High School to meet the needs of the number of residents from the Alcester and Studley planning area. Both Studley High School and St Benedict’s Catholic High School admit a significant proportion of pupils who are resident in Worcestershire. Should the demand for places from Warwickshire pupils increase, admission arrangements are such that the number of places allocated to children living outside of the county would reduce.
St Benedict’s Catholic High School is currently operating below its capacity. Additional places would be made available at the school should demand in the area increase. This capacity would be utilised before plans to expand Alcester Academy are considered. Although a faith school, St Benedict’s Catholic High School welcomes pupils and their families of all faiths or no faith and the local authority considers places at faith schools when meeting sufficiency requirements.
There are no plans to build a secondary school in Bidford. The pupil yield from local housing developments suggests that there is capacity across the planning area for approximately 500 new homes. The minimum number of new homes to require a new secondary school is 5,000.
Options will be considered regarding housing proposals presented in the South Warwickshire Local Plan requiring further detailed work once locations and numbers are known.
