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Press Release

Draft schools admissions code shows contempt for parliament

19 August 2011

The DfE's consultation on its revised draft Schools' Admissions Code closes today.

The NASUWT, the largest teachers' union, has submitted a detailed response to the consultation.

In 2008, the then Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) revised the 2007 Code of Practice in order to ensure that it was robust and able to tackle inequitable or discriminatory admissions practices.

It also sought to address concerns that the 2003 statutory and regulatory framework for school admissions was insufficiently rigorous and had allowed a number of unacceptable admissions practices to become embedded within the system.

The DfE maintains that the revised draft Code will make the schools' admissions system 'simpler, fairer and more transparent'.

Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary, said:

“For the DfE to claim that this revised Code is designed to 'remove the burdens' of the current Code and make the admissions system 'simpler, fairer and more transparent' is disingenuous drivel.

“The reality is that the changes to the current Code will allow more and more schools to sit outside any statutory or regulatory process and set their own admissions policy.

“The 'removal of burdens' and 'simplification' of the Code are in truth the removal of necessary and valuable guidance on good practice and the undermining of all the safeguards in the current Code, allowing poor and discriminatory practice to return and flourish.

“The decision to revise the current Code is not driven by an objectively identified need to address problems with the admissions process but is more to do with seeking to support the Coalition's wider policy agenda to enable individual schools to be more selective in their intake.

“When the Coalition bludgeoned through the Academies Act in July 2010, assurances were given repeatedly to MPs from all parties that the current admissions Code, recently revised when unacceptable practices, including charging for admission and interviewing parents, were discovered, would remain in place.

“The ink was hardly dry on the Academies Act when the DfE announced it was to be revised.

“The whole consultation on admissions is nothing more than a demonstration of contempt of Parliament.”



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