Ealing Primary School Places Announced

As DFES publish their performance tables

This week parents received in the post the news they've both longed for and dreaded. Had that house move, church going, and networking done the trick – were they 'in' their first choice primary school?

The admissions criteria states that where a school is oversubscribed, children's names can be put on their waiting list but those children's applications are still subject to the admissions criteria. And since there's no such thing as 'first come, first served', your child could move down just as easily as move up.

In his blog, Ian Gibb, Ealing North’s Conservative Parliamentary Candidate, said he thought parents will be "relatively happy with their offers although I know a number will be disappointed."

"The usual problem around Little Ealing Primary has been avoided this year as the school will be taking a bust year (ie an additional form of entry - 30 extra kids) and this has filled up from within catchment area," he said.

He did see North Ealing Primary School, where he is a governor, posing a problem. "We have had around 20 more in catchment applicants than we have places for," he said. "There is no room to put a burst year in the school. We can’t put in some temporary accommodation as we will be redeveloping the school over the next couple of years to make it 3 form entry and playground space will already be limited during these works. Parents have been offered places in Hathaway Primary School (and a couple to Montpelier), which is at least relatively close  but I know they will be disappointed."

But with the DFES published its performance tables this week, was your first choice school the right one? The tables show the achievements of pupils in local primary schools and how they compare with other schools in the Local Authority (LA) area, and in England as a whole.

The Tables show:

• background information on each school, including its name, address and telephone number
• results from the KS2 tests taken in May 2008 in English, mathematics and science
• a Key Stage 1 (KS1) to Key Stage 2 (KS2) Contextual Value Added (CVA) score which measures the progress made by pupils from the end of KS1 to the end of KS2 using their test results. It takes into account the varying starting points of each pupil’s KS1 test results, and also adjusts for factors which are outside a school’s control (such as gender, mobility and levels of deprivation) that have been observed to impact on pupil results
• rates of pupil absence from school, showing the percentage of overall absence and the percentage of persistent absence for each mainstream maintained school.

April 3, 2009