School admission arrangements for 2025-26

We proposed changes to the school admission arrangements for the school year 2025-26.

This consultation is now closed

Consultation start date: 30 October 2023

Consultation closing date: 11 December 2023

Hertfordshire County Council's proposed school admission arrangements for 2025-26

The county council proposed the following changes to its admission arrangements for 2025-26:

1. To reduce the published admission number (PAN) at the following 4 community or voluntary controlled primary schools:

The Grove Infant School, Harpenden from 90 to 60 places
Northfields Infants and Nursery School, Letchworth Garden City from 60 to 30 places
Forres Primary School, Hoddesdon from 45 to 30 places
Roger De Clare First School, Ware from 60 to 30 places

2. If the proposal to close Hexton Primary School is approved, to amend the admission arrangements for Pirton Primary School to give increased priority to children from the parish of Hexton.

3. To make minor amendments to the primary and secondary schemes of coordination to provide greater clarity about timescales and increase certainty for school place planning:

To introduce a cut-off date, prior to the start of the iterative process, for own admission authority schools to confirm any intention to admit over PAN. A number of schools admit over PAN and, with many schools responsible for their own admissions, it can be challenging to ensure “over PAN” requests are noted and actioned if they are submitted at any time during the process. The inclusion of a cut-off date will assist in the smooth running of the coordinated allocation processes.
To clarify that new schools and academies will not be included within the coordinated allocation process until their Funding Agreement is in place. This ensures that there is no risk of pupils being allocated a school that may not open. This process is already undertaken in Hertfordshire, with a parallel application process run for new schools until funding is confirmed by the DfE, however it is not explicitly stated anywhere. Inclusion in the schemes of coordination will increase transparency.
To reduce the timescale for responding to allocations from 14 days to 7. This will allow more time for effective processing of responses prior to the next allocation round.

4. To retain the remainder of the county council’s existing admission arrangements for 2025/26, including PANs, Relevant Areas and schemes of coordination.

Further information about the proposals is included in the documents below. The consultation period will run from 30 October to 11 December 2023.

For further details of the proposals, please see the Education, Libraries & Lifelong Learning Cabinet Panel Report for 14 September 2022

Please ensure that your response is submitted by 11 December 2023 at the latest. As required by the School Admissions Code (December 2021), the county council will also be consulting the governing bodies of all community and voluntary controlled schools where the school’s published admission number (PAN) is proposed to remain the same or increase.

The following arrangements have not been amended but are provided for information:

Proposed admission arrangements for voluntary aided, foundation schools and academies for 2025/26

Take a look at the proposed admission arrangements for 2025/26 for academies, voluntary aided and foundation schools. If you would like to make comments or respond to the proposed arrangements, you will need to contact the schools directly. Your responses will be considered by the school when determining their arrangements.

Schools and academies without proposed arrangements for 2025/26 will continue to use the same arrangements as determined for 2024/25. Whilst these schools are not proposing any changes that require a consultation, schools may increase their published admissions number (PAN) without consultation. Please visit the Schools Directory for information about a school’s PAN for 2024/25.

Information on consultations underway outside of Hertfordshire

The following schools in neighbouring local authorities have advised Hertfordshire County Council of their intention to consult. Please be aware this is not a definitive list of schools that are consulting.

The following local authorities have advised Hertfordshire County Council of their intention to consult on their admission arrangements for 2025/26 Please contact the relevant admitting authority directly for further information.

If you require an accessible version of the documents above please email web.team@hertfordshire.gov.uk

School admission arrangements for 2025-26

Hertfordshire County Council's proposed school admission arrangements for 2025-26

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