Myths busted around school vacancies
Members were shown School Admissions Myth Buster 2021 to allay concerns around lower school applications on primary and secondary National Offer Days compared to previous years at their meeting on 25th June 2021. Key factors causing the initial drops were COVID-19 lockdowns which meant that some families were not reminded to apply by settings and schools, families migrating out of London as work patterns change, and new housing, as part of Bexley’s Growth Agenda, is coming on stream more slowly than anticipated. Since then, there has been a large number of late applications, which should bring numbers up to previous levels by September. Members also expressed their concern around how younger vulnerable children and those being educated at home are tracked by the Local Authority. This will be addressed at the next meeting.
After a presentation around pre-school sufficiency, members plan to look in more detail at how Bexley could target the families of the 38% of two-year olds eligible to access free pre-school places who currently do not take them up. They also expressed concern at the growing number of electively home educated children, particularly in years one and eight. This was deemed to be because of the big step up in expectations from reception class to year one for a disrupted year group and because of the level of disruption since transition for the current year eight cohort.
Members then learnt that there would be 2100 places at 21 venues, using 16 providers at summer Holiday Activity Fund clubs for children eligible for free school meals.
