School places: Local parents urged to use all choices when applying

Parents in St. Peter’s ward and across Oadby are being asked to fill in all 3 preferences when applying for their child’s new secondary or primary school.

The County Council have opened applications for secondary schools. The deadline for applications is 31st October.

Applications are also open for primary schools, with the deadline of 15th January 2020.

Jeffrey Kaufman, County Councillor for Oadby tells me that that a number of parents contacted him after places were allocated last year because their children has been offered places in schools some distance from Oadby.

It appears that this was because they filled in one preference for their choice of school. When they were unsuccessful with this first choice, there were no second or third choices to guide the application process.

Councillor Kaufman wants to ensure local parents have the best chance of getting a place at one of their preferred schools and this means using all three available preferences on their application form.

The County Council also agrees, wanting parents to maximise their opportunities by applying for three schools, including their catchment school.

Supporting Oadby pupils who want to go to Beauchamp Sixth Form

Beauchamp College is proposing to change how it allocates places for year 12 the start of “A” levels/ “Sixth Form”) for students who have not taken GCSEs at the college. The change would be effective from admissions in the 2020-21 academic year.

David Carter is one of the Oadby Liberal Democrat Councillors who have responded to the consultation. We encourage all residents to have their say and respond to Beauchamp’s consultation by the 18th January 2019 deadline.

All year 11 students at Beauchamp who meet the minimum requirements for the Sixth Form are guaranteed a place. This leaves around 200 places for students who took their GCSEs at other schools.

Beauchamp is a highly successful college and these Sixth Form places for external students are usually heavily over-subscribed. At the moment, external applications are decided by marking how students perform in a meeting (to all intents, an interview). Beauchamp are changing this because it is does not comply with the Department for Education’s School Admission Code.

The new policy would use a lottery to choose most external admissions. Your Oadby Liberal Democrat Councillors are concerned that no account will be taken of whether students live in Oadby. This means that pupils resident anywhere in Leicestershire will have exactly the same chance attending Beauchamp Sixth Form as pupils who have gone to other Oadby schools, such as Manor and Gartree.

As elected representatives of residents, Cllr. David Carter and Liberal Democrat Councillors for other wards in Oadby believe that all students who reside in Oadby should have equal opportunity of attending Beauchamp College Sixth Form on the same terms as those who take their GSCES at Beauchamp in year 11 and are automatically admitted to the sixth form if they qualify.

We agree with Beauchamp that high quality education should improve social mobility and suggest that remaining places should be allocated to children from outside Oadby that qualify for Pupil Premium funding.

Oadby Schools Lose Free Waste Collections After Conservative Cuts

The latest fallout from government cuts is that Oadby schools will lose free waste collections. This means more pressure on school budgets as they have to find the money for this basic service.

Up to now, Liberal Democrats on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council had been able to provide free rubbish collections for schools, helping them to spend more money on educating our children rather than on paying for recycling to be taken away.

A long history of recycling in Oadby

Oadby and Wigston had been able to continue to provide free recycling collections from schools, where other local councils had not, because the Liberal Democrats had ensured that the council was one of the first to offer kerbside recycling collections.

By being one of the first, the Liberal Democrats were able to set up the council’s own sorting centre. This allowed the service to make money, which was used to help provide the funds for extra services like free school rubbish collections and free garden waste collections for residents.

Theresa May’s Conservative government continue to make huge cuts to local council funding and Council Tax is not allowed to be increased enough to cover this loss.

As a result, Conservative-run Leicestershire County Council decided to change how they funded recycling, which has meant Oadby and Wigston won’t be able to keep the recycling sorting centre.

This, together with cuts to Oadby and Wigston’s money from the government has meant that the council can no longer afford to keep school waste collections free.

We should be encouraging recycling, not charging for it

The Conservatives on County Council are in a complete mess on this. Tory cabinet member Blake Pain is promoting recycling in schools but at the same time, he voted for the changes that led to Oadby schools having to pay to get it collected.

With the damage caused by plastics in our oceans and the need to recycle as much of our rubbish as we can, these actions show how unimportant our environment is to the Conservatives.

Schools Face Money Pressures

The news comes as independent research shows over 1 in 14 primary schools are running deficit budgets in the East Midlands. Our Oadby schools will have even less money to spend on teaching as a result of cuts by Theresa May’s government and decisions by the Conservatives at County Hall.