Decision details

The Director of Children and Families submitted a report which provided a summary of the outcomes from the Admissions functions undertaken by the Local Authority in the 2017/18 academic year. The report included statistics on the annual admissions round for entry into Reception and Year 7 for September 2018. In addition, information was provided regarding the admission of pupils ‘in-year’ during the 2017/18 academic year.

With regard to the forthcoming consultation exercise to be undertaken on admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled schools, with specific reference to the defining of catchment areas for those schools, an assurance was provided that such consultation would include local Ward Members and also Scrutiny.

Members made reference to statistics which had been published regarding Leeds’ performance nationally on the allocation of school places in those instances where parent’s preferences were not met.

RESOLVED – That the following be noted:-

(a)  88% of Reception children and 82% of Year 7 children were offered a place at their first preference school;

(b)  The number of children receiving an offer at one of their top 3 preferred schools was 95.5% for Reception and 92.4% for Year 7;

(c)  Requests for in-year transfers continue to rise, with 7909 (+454 compared to the previous year) children requesting new school places between September 2017 and July 2018 – some being new arrivals in the city and some being requests to move within the city;

(d)  That a consultation on the Leeds City Council Admissions Policy for 2020/21 will be launched in October 2018; and

(e)  That the officer responsible for this area of work is the Lead for the Admissions and Family Information Service.