IMPORTANT - Admission zone consultation

[KevinFord]

IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ - Your help is needed to stop Stockton Council making a bad mistake

Stockton Council have recently published some proposed changes to 2011 admission zones for various schools under their control, which are open to public consultation until 31st December 2009. The full details can be found at http://www.stockton.gov.uk/citizenservi ... ultations/.

As parents with a child at Barley Fields school the part that concerns us the most is the changing of the admission zone for Barley Fields primary school from the whole of Ingleby Barwick to a very small circle around the school and another zone covering most of the North West corner of Ingleby Barwick, referred to as ‘The Rings’. It is understandable that zones need to change from time to time, and there is presently a lack of adequate admission zone for The Rings which is why the council are now looking to change the zones.

If the proposals were to be implemented in their current form though without any other changes then families with older siblings already in Barley Fields school or nursery will find that their younger siblings will probably not be able to get a place at Barley Fields. This is due to the current over-subscription rules which give anyone in an admission zone priority over younger siblings that are no longer in the zone.

Obviously for pickups and drop-offs parents can generally not be in two places at once so some families may be forced to move their older siblings to whatever alternative school is allocated for their youngest siblings. Such a move can be very damaging to a settled child and it is grossly unfair that this situation could be inflicted on families through no fault of their own. It would happen because the council choose to change the zones without changing the admission policy to keep families together.

We would like to propose that across Stockton schools siblings are given priority over ‘in zone’ admissions. This would give all families with more than one child in a Stockton school much more security that this situation will not happen to them in future.

Families have already started making their objections known to the council via letter, email, and the public meetings, but they require many more objections before they will consider amending the proposals. Please take a moment of your time to read the following email template. If you agree and are willing to help then please copy and paste it into a new email, insert your details and forward it to betty.johns@stockton.gov.uk. We can make a difference if we get sufficient numbers, so please help us fight for what we believe is right.

Please forward this email to anyone else you know that lives in the Stockton area who would be willing to help. We have also prepared a petition that can be signed and posted to the council. We don’t expect this from you by any account but if you would be willing to print it and get some signatures then it would really help the cause. Obviously the more support we have the better. The petition can be downloaded from: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/k.ford1/Petition.doc or http://homepage.ntlworld.com/k.ford1/Petition.pdf

Thank You.

============
To: betty.johns@stockton.gov.uk
Subject: Governors Consultation – 2011 admissions
Email body:
Dear Betty

I understand the need to amend the current primary school admission zones, to try to give more families one of their top three choices, however I feel strongly that this cannot be implemented on its own without a change to the oversubscription criteria to cater for families that have already made a commitment to a school with their older siblings. This is particularly relevant for Barley Fields school in Ingleby Barwick, where the proposed change to admission zone is substantial. If the proposals were to be implemented in their current form without any other changes then families with older siblings already in Barley Fields school or nursery will find that their younger siblings will probably not be able to get a place at Barley Fields. This is due to the current over-subscription rules which give anyone in an admission zone priority over younger siblings that are no longer in the zone. Obviously for pickups and drop-offs parents can generally not be in two places at once so some families may be forced to move their older siblings to whatever alternative school is allocated for their youngest siblings. Such a move can be very damaging to a settled child and it is grossly unfair that this situation could be inflicted on families through no fault of their own, purely because the council choose to change the zones without changing the admission policy to keep families together. The alternative to this is to deliver and collect one or more siblings late, something which is generally not accepted by schools. Please file this as a formal objection to the current proposals.

In addition to objecting to the current proposal on admission zones I pledge my support for any proposals which give younger siblings priority over admission zone applicants who do not have older siblings in the school. As I understand it the government produced admission code recommends this, but Stockton Council have not implemented it, going against government guidelines.

I confirm that I live in the Stockton Local Education Authority area. My address is: <insert your address here>
=========