Controversial schools shake-up condemned as 'missed chance'

A CONTROVERSIAL overhaul of Harrogate's schools admissions policies was criticised for being too timid last night after councillors rubber-stamped the new proposals.

The shake-up to admissions in the town's three state secondary schools, the biggest overhaul in 40 years, was approved at a full North Yorkshire County Council meeting yesterday to bring the district up to scratch against new Government guidelines.

The new system means 21 per cent of places at over-subscribed schools will go to new students from rural areas, with the remaining 79 per cent of places going to children from Harrogate itself.

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But councillors warned that the transformation of the old system, which had been branded "inadvertently unfair" towards children from urban areas, had not gone far enough.

Coun Geoff Webber (Lib Dem, Harrogate Bilton and Nidd Gorge) said: "They missed an opportunity to be truly radical.

"The actual agreed numbers should have meant 15 per cent of places going to rural children but they didn't put this in as they felt it would have been too much of a shock to the system.

"I am also very unhappy about the fact that in the event of an oversubscribed place, children living on the periphery of Harrogate still have no more chance of getting their choice as they did before.

"The opportunity has slipped through their fingers."

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Coun Bill Hoult (Lib Dem, Knaresborough) said: "I'm very unhappy this has gone through, because there are still people in urban areas who will not get a chance to go to their first choice school."

The need to change the system for Harrogate High School, Harrogate Grammar School and Rossett School, which have a total of 3,000 students, came about after the Government introduced the new national admissions code in 2008.

Under the old system, more than 40 official complaints were made by parents living in urban neighbourhoods of Harrogate who claimed that their children could lose out to pupils from rural areas on their first choice of school.

Three independent schools adjudicators who had examined the previous system, which had existed since the 1960s, all ruled that it was lawful yet "inadvertently" unfair.

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The county council's executive member for schools, Jim Clark, admitted the changes to the admissions policies had been among the most complex issues the authority has dealt with in recent years.

But Coun Clark insisted he was happy with what had been agreed.

He said: "The numbers we have agreed will ensure there will be an equal chance for children living in rural areas or children living in a town to get the school of their first choice.

"And where places are oversubscribed it will ensure every pupil should get their second choice school.

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"I'm very happy, we have been working on this for eight months and it has been very complex.

"But this gives people a fair opportunity of getting to the school they want to go to and that is what this is about."

The decision was made following extensive consultation exercises towards the end of last year after 5,500 parents of children aged up to the age of 10 at feeder primary schools and nurseries in the area were asked their views about eight different overhaul proposals.