main content Education staff meet offer day target

Education staff in Bromley worked hard under difficult circumstances to ensure offers for secondary school places were sent out on the national offer day of 1 March as planned.

The small admissions team chose to work over the weekend and late on Monday night to put the finishing touches to weeks of work after part of the computer system being used failed.

The effort means that the vast majority of the 3,500 pupils from the borough applying to maintained secondary schools in Bromley or neighbouring local authorities received their offers on the same day, despite some media speculation that this might not happen.

In a small number of cases it was not possible to make an offer of a place but the local education authority is working hard to resolve these, and all those affected have been contacted and advised of the situation.

This is the first year the new system, which is designed to make the admissions process fairer, has operated. In previous years, many children were still without an offer of a school place as late as July.

Though the cause of the computer failure is being investigated, problems appear to have occurred between the pan-London system, set up to co-ordinate admissions across the capital, and the LEA's education IT system which has been in place for many years.

Executive Councillor for Children and Young People Councillor Graham Arthur visited admissions staff on Monday to see for himself the work being done and said afterwards: "This has been a Herculean task but our dedicated team have proved they were equal to it.

They have worked flat out to ensure our young people and their families are not placed under further undue stress at what is often a difficult time of the year.  I am extremely proud of the work they have done to get these offers out on time."

Parents have until 15 March to accept or reject the offer on behalf of their child.  A second round of co-ordination will then begin, including all those who applied after the 22 October deadline.  Any further places which become available will be allocated through waiting lists operated by schools in May.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• Under the new system, parents list up to six schools on one form, ranking them in order of preference
• The form is sent to the local education authority for the area in which they live
• The nominated school (or LEA, in the case of Community Schools) decides whether a place can be offered, applying published criteria if there are more applicants than places
• Single offers are made on 1 March by the LEA from the places available, taking into account parents' highest preferences
• If parents are unhappy with the offer, they can appeal for a place directly to any other school which was higher on their preference list

For media enquiries, call Richard Simcox, Communications Officer, on 020 8313 4310 or e-mail:  richard.simcox@bromley.gov.uk