Only 50.8% Borough Children Going To Secondary School Of Choice

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"80% of parents have received one of their first three preferences."

Over 5000 children in London have failed to get in to their secondary school of their choice aand statistics show that Wandsworth children are suffering the most. The high level of rejections are likely to result in a large number of appeals as many families who missed out on all their preferences will have been offered unpopular schools with plenty of vacancies.

Schools Minister Jim Knight has encouraged them to use the appeal system, which he says is there "for people who feel hard done by". In London, an average 64% of children were offered their first choice, compared to 85% in the rest of England.

A spokesman for Wandsworth Council said ,"The borough has four heavily oversubscribed schools and, additionally, has a large number of the most sought after selective and faith schools in London within reasonable travelling distance. The equal preference system enables parents to rank these schools as first choice without risking losing out on lower preferences. Consequently parents are often content with an offer at their second or third preference school. 80% of parents have received one of their first three preferences. Wandsworth schools have the best exam results of the the inner south London boroughs. This makes them very attractive to residents form places like Lambeth. As a result Wandsworth schools are meeting first preferences from residents of other boroughs. This is particularly true for those which offer places based on ability and aptitude and for those close to the borough boundary. Even when a new and highly popular school opens eg St Cecilia's at Southfields, around a quarter of the places will go outside the borough."

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Local Authority	% going to their first choice	Local Authority	% going to their first choice
Barking & Dagenham	72.31	Islington	69.57
Barnet	62.45	Islington	69.57
Bexley	56.11	Kensington and Chelsea	59.5
Brent	67.53	Kingston upon Thames	59.96
Bromley	64.63	Lambeth	54.35
Camden	71.27	Lewisham	54.29
City of London	No Secondary sch	Merton	55.33
Croydon	55.33	Newham	77.13
Ealing	69.5	Redbridge	54.96
Enfield	62.23	Richmond upon Thames	64.4
Greenwich	64.74	Southwark	52.45
Hackney	59.34	Sutton	62.22
Hammersmith and Fulham	60.07	Tower Hamlets	74.59
Haringey	68.09	Waltham Forest	77.3
Harrow	90.15	Wandsworth	50.8
Havering	75.54	Westminster	65.58
Hillingdon	70.11	London Average	64.27
Hounslow	68.02	-	-

Local MP Justine Greening sees the problem as weaker schools in other local boroughs causing an increase in demand for Wandsworth schools.

"Many of our secondary schools are very popular and not just with Wandsworth parents, but in neighbouring boroughs and across London - last year we had over 7000 parents applying for a Wandsworth school as their first choice, but less than a third were Wandsworth parents.  So although Wandsworth parents were far more likely to get a first choice school than non-Wandsworth parents, there was still a lot of demand for our local schools.  For schools close to borough boundaries, even if a priority is placed on pupils living close by it may cross a boundary, so that a Wimbledon pupil may live closer to say, St Cecilia's than a pupil living in Tooting and be more likely to get a place on that basis.

I think it shows that even if many of our local schools are doing well, if too many schools outside the borough aren't then it's a challenge for us too as parents will look elsewhere to send their children and for many that first choice place will be Wandsworth."

 

March 10, 2008