Ash Green Primary School Catchment

On 18/4/13 the Stoke-on-Trent City Council Children Young People's Overview and ScrutinyCommittee, chaired by Cllr Dave Conway, considered the call in, by Cllrs Terry Follows and Peter Hayward (Hanford and Trentham) and Cllr Glenys Ward (Blurton East), of the Cabinet decision of 28/3/13 on school admissions.  The call in requested that the catchments of Ash Green, Priory and Newstead primary schools are reconsidered.

I observed the meeting and report on it, with extra comments of my own given in italics.

Cllr Ann James declared an interest because a family member works at a primary school and Cllr Terry Follows declared an interest as governor at Ash Green and Priory.

I don't have any personal interest beyond a strong motivation towards my own local community. I am at the time of writing secretary of Ash Green & Pacific Road Residents' Association, but my own children are now in post-16 and higher education.

I am interested in education in the city, concerned about pupil places, have done my own analysis and asked a public question at the 20/12/12 full council on this.  I have also asked about catchment at the 6/9/12 full council.

Paul Gerrard, the strategic manager for admissions, talked about the school admissions report that Cabinet had approved. This had included no primary catchment changes but some changes in Pupil Admission Numbers (PANs). He said school admissions are reviewed annually and the future can be considered but there are financial constraints on what can be done in any one year. He said there had been a request from Ash Green and Pacific Road Residents' Association to change the Ash Green catchment back to what it used to be some years ago (before it was changed without consultation) by including the whole Pacific Road / Constance Avenue loop and roads off, but this displacement would mean moving capital and adding an extra area to Ash Green is hard as the school is full. Cllrs Terry Follows' and Peter Hayward's report considered at the meeting indicates that such a change would have no cost, improve social cohesion and show local residents that their views matter. Paul said the trigger to consider catchment changes is schools being unable to provide places for applications within catchment received on time and that trigger has not yet happened. A residents' association request is apparently not an official trigger.

Ash Green's catchment includes vacant land on which housing is likely to be built, at Trentham Lakes next to the existing recent housing estate and at Wedgwood, but this is not an issue for the 2014 intake as planning is in the early stages. By 2015 there will be an increase in demand for primary places across the city by 8%. I honestly think that when developers wish to build a significant housing estate they should be required to provide a school with it. A new primary school on Trentham Lakes would make for a nice community there with short walks to school.

Much of Paul Gerrard's presentation concerned school PANs (note that the Ash Green and Pacific Road request only concerned catchment, not PANs). Sutherland primary academy had considered reducing their PAN from 75 to 60 and the council had reacted by asking other primary governing bodies whether their schools could expand. Ash Green and Priory had wished their PANs to remain at 60 each but Newstead expressed an interest to increase from 30 to 60 and as it gained an 'outstanding' Ofsted rating in January, capital funds can be accessed. Paul referred to localised birth rate data, which were not presented to the meeting, that show decreases within Ash Green and Priory catchments but increases within Sutherland and Newstead catchments. That's all very well but the data we were actually given shows 2012 admissions of 66 at Ash Green for a PAN of 60, 64 at Priory for a PAN of 60, but only 25 at Newstead for a PAN of 30 and 69 at Sutherland for a PAN of 75, with not too dissimilar results in previous years.

Cllr Terry Follows reiterated 'wearing different hats' as he is a governor at Ash Green and Priory but also has a duty to represent residents. He said Ash Green has always been full, he remembers 21 appeals one year. He said residents had felt cheated since the Pacific Road / Constance Avenue loop had been taken out of Ash Green's catchment without consultation. Too true! That point is key. He said the Trentham Lakes estate was put into Ash Green's catchment to raise the value of the houses, despite the area being in Blurton West and Newstead ward. The Wedgwood development has plans going in this year and includes executive housing up to £800,000. If they couldn't get places at Ash Green there would be children from there going over the border to Stafford Borough, taking money out of Stoke-on-Trent Council. He pointed out that Priory catchment includes new housing being built at Primrose Hill in Hanford. Terry was particularly annoyed that he and Cllr Peter Hayward had had meetings with senior officers that were not referred to in the report to Cabinet despite assurances that they would be taken into account. He also said it was illogical to be increasing the PAN at Newstead when it is not reaching its existing PAN. He said he could understand if that is the only way to get money out of the government but the catchment should be increased along with the PAN.

Paul Gerrard pointed out that the admissions report is for 2014 only and it is likely that other primaries could be academies after that, then they all decide their own admissions and catchments are less relevant. This is a problem with academies and we have that with high schools anyway. It is worse if there aren't enough schools or they are in the wrong place. They will tend to have a distance criterion but families not living close to any schools will be a long way down the list for admission to all of them and can end up without a place at any school anywhere near them. On the plus side perhaps it may be easier for communities to persuade their local academy to adopt sensible admission criteria to serve them. Paul also said as catchments become less relevant admissions will be about preferences! This gets my goat, but Cllr Ann James expressed my thoughts on this later.

Cllr Alastair Watson asked, given that Ash Green is full, why isn't it rated as 'outstanding' as Newstead is? Paul Gerrard explained that Ash Green is 'good' under a previous definition but has not had an Ofsted inspection since the definitions changed so has had no chance yet to attain a current 'outstanding'.

Cllr Ann James thought that there was an agreement with the local authority on admissions when schools convert to academies, otherwise we would have serious problems.  Too right!  But Paul Gerrard confirmed that whilst academies work with local authorities, they get to choose and only have to follow national admissions requirements.  There are no rules on where they may choose catchments. He said parental preference overcomes catchment issues! But Ann pointed out that what we are saying is "sorry, you don't have a preference"! The local authority only has a duty to provide any school place, it doesn't even have to be within walking distance if transport is provided. Ann asked; if Ash Green and Priory convert to academies but don't want to increase numbers, what happens to the rest of the children? Paul said the agreement on the number of places is between the school and the Department for Education in central government.

Cllr Terry Follows was surprised that Sutherland, an outstanding school, would want to downsize. Paul Gerard then stated they have not formally gone ahead with this!

Cllr Dave Conway expressed some doubts with regard to data as some years ago it was said that we needed fewer schools. He said if we assume young people getting married are not having children then we end up in serious trouble! Paul Gerrard said predictions are now based on actual data over a short time scale, some years ago schools were got rid of because of inadequate buildings but now if there is demand high quality building is supplied and there is a high success rate for first preferences. Dave also asked Cllr Alan Dutton as Cabinet member for education about the meetings and assurances Cllrs Terry Follows and Peter Hayward had been given but Alan said he wasn't at the meetings so can't comment and the Cabinet considered the offices' report. There was dispute over whether an increased PAN at Newstead had been mentioned at the meetings, Terry said it had not while Paul said it had. I was at the first meeting but not the second and took notes which I copied to Alan. There is mention of Newstead but not of increasing the PAN.

Eileen Rogan asked whether Ash Green or Priory have given concerns over standards as a reason not to expand but no clear answer was given.

Cllr Ann James wished to refocus the discussion on catchment rather than numbers because basically families have had this altered and simply want it back. Well said.

Cllr Dave Conway suggested to Cllr Alan Dutton that the Cabinet had not considered the issue in depth. I observed that Cabinet meeting and there was no discussion whatsoever on this, they just approved the officers' report. Alan responded that it was all in the report and confirmed that the PAN at Sutherland is not now decreasing! So, decisions were made on the basis of a downsizing that is not happening and they don't see a need to review the decision?

Cllr Majid Khan said if Ash Green and Priory become academies the issues won't be relevant.

Reverend David Lingwood asked if there were children from the area that is requested to move back into Ash Green's catchment who are not getting into Ash Green. Paul Gerrard said that not one parent has written in about this issue, there are disappointments but there are non-catchment successes. This I think is rather unfair and doesn't reveal the full situation. When the catchment was unfairly moved in the first place people did complain but got nowhere. We  investigated how residents could have a say in catchment areas but were told it was a decision made by the council in discussion with the schools. There isn't a defined mechanism for communities to input into this. So the residents' association has had meetings with the council and decided a good route would be for our elected councillors to act on our behalf rather than encourage individuals to contact the council. This is why our councillors are so concerned about the meetings they have had and what notice is being taken of them, they are representing us but seem to fail to get through to Cabinet.

Now Reverend David Lingwood's question is one I have asked and not got an answer to. For 2012 there were 82 first choice applicants for Ash Green for 60 places. 66 places

were allocated, so at least 16 first choice applicants were disappointed, but we do not know what areas these are from. Paul Gerrard says there are non-catchment successes and his statistics show 6 of these. But, the numbers also show 66 catchment, local authority care (LAC) and special educational needs (SEN) applications. So it looks like the non-catchment successes are LAC/SEN and children who live with their parents and have no SEN statements haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of getting in if they are outside catchment.

Cllr Shaun Pender expressed concern that if the PAN was increased for Ash Green it could give false hope to the community if it then became an academy and reduced the PAN again.

Cllr Karen Clarke said surely the school had agreed the admissions report but Cllr Terry Follows reiterated that he is representing residents.

Paul Gerrard summed up saying the consultation had been thorough and the data do not support the call-in recommendations.

Cllr Terry Follows said that surely the Trentham Lakes land not yet built on could move to Newstead or Sutherland to prevent further future problems, especially if Newstead is expanding. As Ash Green is full, even being in catchment may not help and the new Trentham Lakes development on straight line rules, despite the railway, would have priority over some existing communities particularly in the New Park estate in South Trentham and over the new Wedgwood development.

Cllr Terry Follows summed up and requested that the Cabinet continue with admission arrangements for 2014 with the exception of Ash Green, Priory and Newstead and the catchment areas for these three schools are reconsidered in light of the full facts.

Cllr Ann James moved the motion suggested by Cllr Terry Follows and Cllr Dave Conway seconded it. Their two votes were in favour but there were 7 votes against.

I will sum up with a few thoughts of my own.

Ash Green primary school was originally built to serve an area of Trentham around it which included the whole of the Pacific Road / Constance Avenue loop. It should continue to do so.

The key important point to make is that the catchment area for Ash Green was changed to exclude most of the Pacific Road / Constance Avenue loop, WITHOUT CONSULTATION, some years ago. People, including from the school itself, objected at that time but were ignored. This is a wrong that should be put right!

Whilst catchment is just one criterion that is considered when allocating school places and people outside catchment are free to apply, the fact that primary schools are so oversubscribed means that it can be very difficult to get a place in a school from outside catchment, this is why catchment becomes so important, especially now with increasing numbers of primary children.

Priory is a Church of England faith school. Generally they would draw from a wide area on the basis of faith, to serve that faith community. If they end up having to fill up with families in their current catchment who prefer Ash Green but cannot get a place there, not only do those families not get their first choice, but it also reduces the chances for families wanting a place at Priory on faith grounds. Whilst some families prefer a faith school, others have a strong conviction for a non-faith school and their wishes should be treated on at least equal grounds to those of faith.

If the Pacific Road / Constance Avenue loop were returned to Ash Green's catchment, those in the area choosing Ash Green would almost certainly get a place at Ash Green on catchment and distance grounds. Those in the area choosing Priory would almost certainly get a place at Priory on faith or distance grounds. This would result in MORE local families getting their first choice of school, which is after all a goal of the council's own admissions policy. So if they make the suggested change they would BETTER achieve their OWN aims.

As Ash Green is so oversubscribed, it makes sense to move those areas in its catchment which are not currently built upon to catchments of neighbouring schools with more places.

New schools or increasing PANs can help, subject to consultation and sufficient infrastructure and resourcing, but increasing the PAN at Newstead without a change in the Ash Green catchment does nothing whatsoever to help families on the Pacific Road / Constance Avenue loop currently outside catchment, to access Ash Green. There is no logic to the council's admission report in this respect. We could end up with families in Ash Green's catchment but much further from Ash Green and nearer to Newstead getting places at Ash Green by virtue of catchment, whilst families on the Pacific Road / Constance Avenue loop could be allocated places at Newstead which is a long distance from them, past Ash Green, causing more traffic congestion and against the concept of safe walking routes to school. Again, it would not comply well with the policy of families getting places at their LOCAL school.

Stoke on Trent City Council Meeting 6/9/12

I attended this council meeting and this time contributed by asking supplementary questions to two public questions.  I will concentrate in this blog on petitions and public questions and refer to times in the webcast.

Petitions

Two of the petitions opposed the move of the civic centre from Stoke to Hanley.  There was a further petition on this still receiving signatures outside the civic centre as I arrived – I signed it naturally,  I reported previously on the decision at the last council meeting to squander a further ~£40k on this move.  The speaker, Richard Snell (0:20:31), gave a very good presentation.  He described the planned move as madness from the point of view of residents, traders and the business community.  He also presented an alternative idea to concentrating the city in Hanley; to build on the city's heritage, keep the tradition of the civic centre in Stoke and introduce town councils to build a strong federation of towns within the city.  This is a good idea I think.  He expressed some surprise that the council had not thought of this.  I'm not surprised myself, I just suspect Labour would find it more difficult to dominate such a devolved structure.

City Independent Cllr Randy Conteh (0:23:18) then proposed that the petition be passed on to the City Renewal Overview and Scrutiny Committee for further consideration.  Labour Cllr Ruth Rosenau (0:23:46) said opposition councillors could have called the decision in but didn't.  Labour Council Leader Mohammed Pervez (0:24:10) agreed with this but what happened next surprised me.  Pervez began a discussion and rebuttal of the petition itself.  Normal procedure is that councillors may propose referral to scrutiny but do not debate a petition in full council unless it has reached at least 5,000 signatures, which these petitions had not.  So anyway, Pervez launched into his speech, much of which was nonsense.  He claimed, as has been said many times before, that the empty Spode site is attractive to investors.  If so, why is it still empty?  It seems to me he's been flogging that particular dead horse far too long now.  He now adds that the abandoned civic offices, King's Hall, Kingsway car park and Swann House will be attractive to investors.  But he repeated the claim that moving the civic centre to Hanley will give businesses the confidence to follow and invest in Hanley.  Now to me that's logically inconsistent, if moving the council to Hanley attracts business then wouldn't the council abandoning Stoke have the opposite effect there?  I can't see that he can have this both ways.  Furthermore, the supposed plans for Stoke are unclear even within the Labour party; Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central Dr Tristram Hunt has been complaining in the press about lack of information on this. Pervez used that tired old claim that the electorate on the doorstep agree with Labour on this issue, a claim of course for which there is no evidence.  There is however documented evidence in petitions and protests that many of the electorate do not agree. One pertinent question Pervez did ask was “where are we now exactly?”  Anyway, eventually unaffiliated Cllr Paul Breeze (0:30:45) pointed out that procedure had gone awry.  

City Independent Cllr Dave Conway (0:32:16) was consequently also given the right to speak.  He pointed out that a colossal amount of money has been spent renovating 4 floors of the Stoke civic centre, what a waste to then abandon it.  I'm not surprised, the Willfield gym and education centre were also nicely renovated, I saw them myself.  Where are they now?  Bulldozed!  He referred to the claim of good feedback on the doorsteps being rubbish, if it was so good then why didn't Labour win the Springfields and Trent Vale by-election?  He also pointed out that the new bus station that Pervez had mentioned is not big enough for all the buses!  He said the money for moving to Hanley was borrowed and there was no money to invest in Stoke.  He rightly expressed concern about the council's increasing debt.

Cllr Randy Conteh (0:36:27) was then given the right to reply to the debate.  He said Hardial Bhogal, director of city renewal, had said he would provide information on the proposals for the regeneration of Stoke and that councillors and petitioners needed to see this and petitioners should be able to bring their case to scrutiny.

Needless to say the City Independent motion to take this issue to the scrutiny committee was lost because dominant Labour councillors voted against it.

Public Questions

There were 8 public questions for which 2 questioners, one of whom was me, attended to ask supplementary questions for 4 of these.

Mike Barnes had asked what would be done to provide better future projections of and services for the population in the city, which is increasing contrary to previous predictions.   Council Leader Mohammed Pervez had attributed the unexpected increase to soaring birth rates and EU inward migration on a scale never seen before.  He had said services were reviewed on a rolling basis and the ONS provide annual population estimates.  Mike Barnes  (0:39:56) asked about inconsistencies in reports he had heard regarding the population.  Mohammed Pervez (0:41:04) said the uncertainties depend on the accuracy of the data collection and that the population of the city is 249,000, from the 2011 census.

Mike Barnes had also asked which councillors had signed up to the new standards protocol.  Mohammed Pervez had replied that council had agreed a code of conduct effective 1st July 2012 and it automatically applies to all members, they do not have to sign.  Mike Barnes (0:42:48) asked what selection procedure is used to appoint the independent member of the standards committee and whether the criteria include political party membership or former membership.  He said the current individual was a Labour party member for 27 years.   Mohammed Pervez  asked the head of legal services Paul Hackney (0:43:55) to answer this.  He said the council's fair recruitment and selection procedure is used and the independent member must have no current political affiliations.  So presumably this would be applied to any former member of any political party, irrespective of how long they had held that membership, provided they had currently ceased membership.

Then it was my turn.  The background to my questions was that I had wanted for both general interest and local reasons to find out the catchment areas of the primary schools in the city.  I had scoured the Stoke-on-Trent city council website but had failed to find the information I was seeking.  I submitted questions relating to this.  In between submission and receiving the answers, pleasingly, a map of catchment areas appeared on the website.

So my first question had been to request a map showing the primary school catchment areas.  Cllr Alan Dutton, cabinet member for education, had replied that this is now on the website. I asked the question (0:45:20) “How are catchment areas decided and how can local residents take part in the decision making process?"  Alan Dutton (0:45:40) replied that schools decided this and that parents could choose schools if places were available.  This threw me rather because if schools decided their own catchment areas there would be overlaps and gaps.  Also no mention was made of the council's role in deciding the catchment areas.  The point about parental choice isn't really relevant because catchment areas only matter in precisely the situation where there aren't enough places and parents may be denied their choice.  This links in with Mike Barnes' question about population.  In my area of Trentham both the primary school and high school are oversubscribed.  This isn't a direct issue for me as my children are past high school age and continuing their education outside the city, but it's of great general importance, has community implications locally and can cause great difficulties to families when catchment areas move.  Besides, I have been banging on about impending lack of school places for years.  I will be following up this question with the council.

My second question had been to request not just any map, but a map on the website.  I had provided an example of one, from West Berkshire council, for no other reason than this popped up when I did an internet search and looked useful.  Of course Stoke-on-Trent had provided a web map after I'd asked the question, so Alan Dutton's reply reflected this.  I had prepared two possible supplementary questions in this case.  I had been dismayed when I saw the meeting documents because my question had not been reproduced as I had sent it.  One possible supplementary question could have been: “An apostrophe has been introduced to this question as printed.  This was not in my original question and is grammatically incorrect.  Would the education department please remove it from the meeting documents and minutes?”  However I had chased this up ahead of the meeting and been told that the meeting documents would not change but the error would be corrected in the minutes, which is half OK.  So instead I posed another question (0:47:01).  “The introduction of these maps to the website is most welcome.  But could we please have more zoom out options added so those of us with an interest in education across the city can see the bigger picture?”   Alan Dutton (0:47:19) replied that the Stoke-on-Trent map is superior to the example I had given.  To an extent this is a matter of opinion, hopefully you may judge for yourselves and compare West Berkshire with Stoke-on-Trent.  While writing this blog I am unable to access the West Berkshire map, but from memory my assessment of the two websites is that Stoke-on-Trent is better in respect of having both aerial photograph and OS map views and catchment areas of different colours, albeit of poorer contrast in OS view and West Berkshire is better in respect of having blue rather than yellow boundary lines which are easier to see, having quicker and less cumbersome navigation around the map and having a larger number of zoom levels.  It's good that Stoke-on-Trent now has a catchment map and I can feed in suggestions for improvement via the website.


UPDATE 11/10/12

Following the council meeting Alan Dutton did arrange for a meeting between the council's education department, our local councillors and some members of our local RA to discuss a local catchment issue.  That was useful insofar as it enabled a better understanding of how these things work but not as yet in producing any desired change.  

It was clarified that the council does indeed have a major role in deciding catchment areas (less so for academies and trust schools for which there are very few in the primary sector in Stoke-on-Trent for the time being).  In fact it is ultimately the council's cabinet which makes these decisions, although they are unlikely to take any action unless prompted by the education department of the council.  If the education department wants to make a change they trigger a 'consultation' which is considered by an 'admissions forum' at the council attended by some school governors and councillors, which then advises cabinet.  This process is for admissions policy more broadly and may or may not include any catchment consideration.

It was also clarified that there is no formal way that local people are included in the council's process but we can meet with, write to and let our views be known to councillors, council officers, cabinet members and school heads and governing bodies.

It is the issue of primary catchment which is of particular major concern locally to the RA I am in.  The council states that catchment areas must be “reasonable” and “inclusion of a catchment tends to increase the chances of local people getting access to their local school”.  However locally a change was made that was very unfair and had the opposite effect, exclusion of local people from catchment has decreased, rather than increased, the chances of those families getting access to their local school.  The education department and Alan Dutton are now aware of this and have been requested to rectify this in future cabinet decisions, although there is of course no guarantee that cabinet will agree.

There are some distressing anecdotal accounts but I requested some statistical information regarding the schools local people from different areas, both within the council defined catchment and the area we think should be in catchment, are asking for and the schools actually allocated and the areas from which allocations to the school actually come from.  I thought some real statistics would help with discussions at our RA open meeting next week.  But I am still waiting for the numbers.

As for the suggestions I made for the website, which were well illustrated by me having to litter the meeting table with multiple A4 sheets printed from the web, on account of not being able to zoom out far enough, these have not, as yet, been implemented.