Fir Vale Admissions Proposal Responses

To follow up on our article Fir Vale School proposes admissions change in the February 2014 edition, we have received some comments from the school and from some local residents regarding the new admissions procedure that is being proposed from September 2015.

Fir Vale School's Comments

For a number of years, staff and governors have shared concerns that families have been unable to secure a place for brothers and sisters of students already on roll and if implemented, this would resolve this old problem by making it a priority. It is also felt that the community should retain a successful secondary school within the heart of Fir Vale that provides high quality education, enabling students with a full range of academic ability to achieve success at their local community school. This is similar to the new primary school with the intention of ensuring a balanced intake, with a truly comprehensive mix of students, through a fair banding process as recommended in research by Barnardo's charity and the Sutton Trust. The proposal is in line with official guidance and ensures that priority is given to any application for a Looked After Child or student with special educational needs.

Although Fir Vale has recently been expanded, through a programme with the local authority to increase the student roll from 150 to 210 places per group, the popularity of the school is such that they continue to receive more applications than there are places available. The arrangement for secondary school catchment areas in Sheffield does allocate more students to a particular school than there are places as it traditionally expects a degree of parental choice for specific schools and this is traditionally the situation in the Fir Vale area.

The new proposal would provide additional benefits for the school and hence choosing to utilise a nationally acknowledged testing system known as CATS. The early availability of this data will enable new students to be allocated to the most appropriate teaching group at the start of their time at Fir Vale and therefore eliminating the need to change groups a month or two later. The school will for the first time have information on all new students as well as contributing to developing a re-assuring transition process into secondary education for the young people. The scores from this testing programme will be used as the 3rd level of criteria, in what is known as a ‘tie-breaker’, to allocate students into five ability bands in order to achieve a fully comprehensive school.

Consultation closes on 1st March 2014 and information has already been issued to those families that would be affected by the change for the first two years i.e. the parents and carers of students currently in years 4 and 5 of the local primary schools. In line with the DfE guidelines, other educational institutions and the Local Authority are involved in the consultation process and meetings have taken place to clarify the details of the change being considered. A full copy of the proposal can be found on the new school website http://www.firvale.com under ‘Information’ – ‘Admission Arrangements’.

Who in school will over see the new admissions process?  How will the independent appeals process work? The LA continue to receive applications for places at Fir Vale and Governors will be recruiting an independent appeals panel for occasions when there is oversubscription.

How will parents be made aware of the consultation process on the new policy? Are there any plans for events or meetings in school that we can tell people about? Letters have been sent to current parents and those currently in Y4 & Y5 in the local primary schools. Individuals should make contact initially through the school office or email if they seek any clarification.

What impact do you anticipate this policy will have on the local community?  Key will be the confidence families can have in securing places for siblings.

Local Residents' Responses

Craig Broadwith writes:

Dear Burngreave Messenger,

As a former Parent Governor at Fir Vale School, I'm writing to express my opposition to the introduction of selection at Fir Vale. I believe this move will be both divisive and discriminatory, which is the last thing the community which the school serves needs.

The Cognitive Ability Test to be used for this selection may be fine for students who have gone through our primary schools; for those who have limited or no experience of our primaries will be at an automatic disadvantage. For this reason alone, selection is wrong for Fir Vale.

The conversion of Fir Vale to an Academy (which I opposed) involved a great deal of work by the school's senior management. Academy status was followed by a poor OFSTED report, which highlighted shortcomings in the schools management. In my view the schools management should focussing on improving the OFSTED rating, and building on the success achieved with the 2013 GCSE results, rather than being distracted by another ill-conceived project.

Julia Shergold writes:

Dear Burngreave Messenger,

When Fir Vale became an academy we were assured that they had no plans to change things like their admissions procedures, and now they have gone back on that assurance. It strikes me most obviously that this will put unnecessary pressure on young children, who will be expected to go to an unfamiliar secondary school while in year 6, to sit an unnecessary exam that could affect their whole secondary school career. It feels to me like this is for the benefit of the school, but not the students. The school will be able to “pick and choose” students according to how they do in an arbitrary test, and may well use this system to exclude children who are from the lower bands. Taking 20% from each band isn't “fair” if more than 20% of the children taking the test fall into one of the bands in particular.

Linda Cawley writes:

Dear Messenger

This is nothing more than an attempt at “keeping out” children who the school don't wish to have and I suspect that comes down to Roma Slovak children.

The school is stating that is “fair to the community”. This will do nothing but divide the community. Children will see their friends and possibly family members, brothers and sisters, sent off to various other schools.

It's discriminatory and it will create a division which we should be ashamed of.

All children should have the right to education, good health and an opportunity to progress that into their adult lives. To ensure we have a well balanced and healthy population of adults who can contribute to their communities we need to ensure we provide equal opportunities for them as children.

I am totally opposed to this course of action.

Send your response

Any response should be made in writing to:

Ms B Martin, Headteacher, Fir Vale School, Owler Lane, Sheffield S4 8GB or by email to enquiries@firvale.com

Once all responses have been considered, a final decision will be taken and an update will be published on the Fir Vale School website and through the Messenger.