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Primary places – wide local variations emerging

by Rajdeep

Classroom

Less than 69% of families in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea were offered their first choice, compared with 83% for London overall.

There was better news for parents in Redcar and Cleveland, where almost 98% got their first choice.

A national average for England will not be available for a couple of weeks.

Parents of three and four-year-olds have been finding out which schools their children will attend next year.

‘Pressure’

Some early figures are beginning to emerge, with the pan-London Admissions Scheme saying 103,329 pupils applied for primary school places in the capital this year – just 58 fewer than last year – “demonstrating that pressure on places remains strong”.

The admissions body says more than 94% of children in London were offered places at one of their top three schools, and almost 97% at one of their top six schools.

This leaves 3% on waiting lists without a school place or allocated places at schools they had not applied for.

London Councils, which runs the admissions scheme, is urging the government to allocate sufficient funding to local authorities to fully meet the cost of providing new school places in the capital.

Outside London, the heaviest pressure to emerge so far is on school places in Reading, where just under 79% of children were offered their first choice of school.

Separately, analysis by the Teach First group has suggested the poorest families lose out in the scramble for places at the most popular primary schools.

The least wealthy families have less than half the chance of the wealthiest of sending a child to a top-rated school, according to analysis from the teacher training group.

Poorer families’ children are four times more likely to be at weaker schools, according to the study.

However, the government says many more pupils are now in good or outstanding schools.

Teach First analysed data on Ofsted rankings for all schools in England and mapped it against the areas with the poorest children living in them, using an official measure of deprivation called Income Domain Affecting Children Index (IDACI)

The analysis reveals one area, Blackpool, does not have a single outstanding school, while the Isle of Wight and Thurrock have only one each.

[Source:- Bbc]

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