11:00am Saturday 13th March 2010
By Chris Wickham
The way school places are allocated means the number of pupils getting their first preference secondary school is unlikely to rise above current levels.
That is the verdict of the officer in charge of admissions, Matthew Paul, who says the astute nature of borough residents also plays a part.
Mr Paul defended last week’s revelation that 62 per cent of pupils were offered a place at their first-choice school, and explained it was the nature of the pan-London system that meant it would stay at a similar level in the future.
Richmond Council’s deputy head of commissioning, delivery and service improvement in the children’s services and culture department, said: “The system is designed to allow parents to express a first preference for a school that is statistically unlikely to be successful, while expressing a second preference for a school they will get.
“Parents in Richmond are astute enough to know they can express a preference for an out of borough school like Tiffin [the selective school in Kingston which has about 1,500 applications for 140 places], knowing they can get in to their second choice school.”
Mr Paul explained that under the system parents put down six preferences in the order they would like their children to attend each school, but the applications are judged on the basis of stating any preference for that school – not a “first preference first” system, which was in operation prior to 2004.
He said parents were very aware of the system and knew what was likely to happen by putting a school with tough entry criteria first, and their choice of borough school second – they were still in essence getting their first choice.
Mr Paul said: “There are hundreds of schools within fairly easy travelling range of Richmond.
“Schools explain the process very carefully and we have lots of queries every year about how the process works.
“The system is designed for parents to get one of their preferences, not necessarily their first preference.
“It might be their first preference is not their true first preference in terms of schools they know they can get into.”
Mr Paul explained Richmond was generally below the London average – this year 66 per cent of children in the capital were offered a place at their first-choice school – because many borough schools were vastly oversubscribed.
Teddington and Orleans Park got more than 1,000 applications, and there were many other high-achieving schools nearby.
He said it was a vast improvement on the old system, where parents had to apply to different authorities and sometimes individual schools, and often ended up with more than one offer.
Mr Paul added: “The [first preference satisfaction rate] is never going to get higher, but that’s not a sign of complacency, it’s how the system is designed to work.”
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