Anger as only one in five kids get into chosen school
MORE than 100,000 families have failed to get their children into preferred secondary schools this year, official figures confirmed yesterday.
The disappointed pupils – nearly one in five entering secondary education this autumn – provoked accusations that Labour has failed to deliver its promises of wider classroom choice.
But last night ministers attempted to deflect the row by turning on schools for allegedly flouting admission rules.
Children and Families Secretary Ed Balls claimed a “significant minority” of schools were breaking the law by secretly favouring pupils from middle-class backgrounds.
He claimed they were introducing covert selection such as financial charges for admission to discourage families from under-privileged backgrounds applying to send their youngsters to the best state schools.
Mr Balls called the alleged selection “totally unacceptable”.
Critics accused the Government of attempting to divert attention from the admission figures by publishing a
survey into admission procedures on the same day.
Tory Shadow Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: “Ed Balls is distracting people from the issue. There are too few good schools.”
Figures from the Department for Schools, Children and Families showed that 18.4 per cent of the 570,000 pupils due to start secondary education this autumn failed to achieve their first choice. And 6.1 per cent – more than one in 20 – were turned away from their top three choices. These figures are based on returns from 138 out of 149 local authorities.
But a separate survey of 570 secondary schools suggested that many were flouting a new admissions code introduced by the Government last year.
A high proportion were said to be faith schools, frequently criticised for favouring a middle-class intake. But ministers refused to specify how many schools were allegedly breaking the code.
Mr Balls said: “When we saw the evidence we were very concerned. This was not a handful, it was in the tens of schools.”
He claimed some were charging “many hundreds of pounds per term”, apparently for extra activities, to weed out worse-off families. In one case, parents were told to complete a standing order at the time they applied for a place, he said.
But headteachers insisted that most schools were sticking to the rules. John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The vast majority of schools have adhered to the new admissions code.”
One teachers’ union, NASUWT, warned that schools which have charged parents could face legal action.
