Description:
The Office of the Schools’ Adjudicator (OSA) has recently determined that our banding arrangements for children transferring to secondary school in September 2018 do not comply with the School Admissions Code. This applies to the following schools: Eltham Hill, The John Roan, Plumstead Manor and Thomas Tallis. We have been instructed to revise our admission arrangements by 1st September 2017.
We agree that school admission arrangements need to be fair, clear and objective for parents. While we endeavoured to achieve this through our arrangements we accept the determination made by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator and will be revising our arrangements for entry from September 2018 so that they are fully compliant with the School Admissions Code. The following options are available:
Option A
Retain the use of banding for secondary transfer admissions from September 2018.
Option B
Discontinue with the use of banding for secondary transfer admissions from September 2018.
Option A would require changes being made to the banding structure and the re-introduction of Year 5 tests. Due to time constraints, this is not deemed a viable option.
We are proposing to opt for Option B - the removal of banding from our arrangements - on the basis that it is the only viable option under the circumstances. This means that primary schools would not be required to provided Year 5 teacher assessment data.
Further information regarding the OSA’s determination is available via the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/royal-borough-of-greenwich-local-authority-secondary-schools
The OSA has also made similar judgements against Corelli College, Greenwich Free School, Harris Academy Greenwich, Royal Greenwich Trust School, Stationer’s Crown Woods Academy and Woolwich Polytechnic. These schools are also proposing to remove banding from their 2018 arrangements.
Please send any comments you may have regarding this proposal to school-admissions@royalgreenwich.gov.uk by Friday 21st July 2017.