Questions about our 2017 Admissions consultation

The following questions address queries raised relation to our 2017 Admissions Consultation report.  Following an unsuccessful challenge by an individual the policy has also been fully scrutinised by Schools Adjudicator,. You can read the determination here.

For the question about admissions proportions please can you give us a fuller breakdown of the yes/no responses by each category of individual? 

Yes, these are shown below. For those who responded "no" and left a comment we have separated out those who said they wanted more places for the permanent site and those who wanted more places for the admissions point. Those who didn't leave a comment or whose comment was unclear have been put in a third category.

• Primary parents applying for September 2017

• Other parents at a primary school

• Parent at a secondary school

• Another individual

How have you counted families who have children of different ages? 

We asked people whether they were responding as the parent of a 2017 applicant, another primary parent, a secondary parent, another individual or an organisation. It was only possible for respondents to make one selection, and we assumed that families with children of mixed ages would select the category that was most relevant to their response. In future consultations we will make sure we state this assumption and include a category for children who are younger than primary age too.

You say you don't think 50:50 would be an appropriate ratio, but don't say whether you considered other ratios between this and 80:20.  Did you?

Yes, other options were discussed at length. However, as stated in the report we are deferring any decision to change the proportions until a later date so that we can get further clarity on a number of issues.  A decision will be made before we move to our permanent site.

Please can you give more detail on how you promoted the consultation?

Yes, a high level list of consultees was given in the report, and more detail is below. At the launch of the consultation we notified:

• Richmond Local Authority;
• Hounslow Local Authority;
• Kingston Local Authority;
• Surrey Local Authority;
• Ealing Local Authority;
• Wandsworth Local Authority;
• All maintained schools in Richmond-upon-Thames (using the contact list provided by the Local Authority for this purpose);
• The 2085 local parents and other interested people, groups, trusts and associations who have registered on our email Mailing List since it was established in 2012;
• Current Turing House parents;
• Approximately 660 Twitter followers including all the local community groups, trusts and associations that we engage with or who are interested in the school;
• All Richmond Borough Councillors;
• Our local Member of Parliament, Tania Matthias and also Zac Goldsmith;
• Church of England (CE) and Roman Catholic (RC) Diocesan Directors of Education (as required by LA guidance to consult "relevant faith authorities ... with an interest in the local admission arrangements";

Was the consultation also promoted by others?

Yes, in January there was local press coverage of councillors' statements in relation to the consultation in both Richmond and Hounslow, and a Whitton councillor promoted the consultation via Twitter e.g. on Dec 10th,Jan 14th & 15th.  Information and views on the consultation was also circulated on Twitter and Facebook by the Whitton Village social media group e.g. on Dec 10th, Jan 14th, 15th, 26th, 27th from where they were shared by many individuals within their own social media networks.

Please can you list the number of people who responded by ward/location?

Yes, the numbers are as follows: