Lady Margaret School, Parsons Green (05A05670, 18169)

School admissions                      Maladministration causing injustice

20 March 2007

The admission procedures at Lady Margaret School in Parsons Green, London, were so flawed that it was impossible to determine how places had been allocated. In his report, the Ombudsman upholds complaints from two families who applied unsuccessfully for a place at the School for their daughters. “This report identifies some of the most extensive problems and flaws with school admissions criteria that I have seen”, he says.

The School awarded points to applicants based on various factors. These included a reference from the primary school, information provided by the child herself and the School’s knowledge of the family. The complainants were not given enough points to be offered a place at the School. They then exercised their right in law to appeal to an independent panel against the rejection of their applications. The appeals failed and so they complained to the Ombudsman.

Appeal panels must decide whether the admission arrangements had been properly applied and, if not, whether a place should have been offered. The view of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is that an admission authority must make it clear at the hearing why a decision to refuse admission was taken. If it cannot do this, the appeal should be upheld. The Ombudsman found that the School’s procedures, many of which would be forbidden by the recent Code of Practice on Admissions, made it impossible to establish how places at the School had been awarded; so the appeals should have been allowed.

When the Ombudsman finds that parents have been denied a proper appeal, he will often recommend that a fresh appeal be heard. But in this case he considers that the appeals should have succeeded and so he has recommended that the School offers places to both children. He also recommends that the School pays £500 compensation to each family because they have been caused unnecessary anguish, uncertainty, time and trouble.

The Ombudsman also finds that the banding system used by the School allowed too many places to be offered to girls scoring highly in its admissions tests, at the expense of the less able. The DfES also commented during the investigation that the School’s banding arrangements were unacceptable. The School has agreed to change the banding arrangements for admissions from September 2007 onwards. It has also embarked on a fundamental review of the admission procedures for September 2008. The Ombudsman welcomes these moves.

Date Published: 15/01/09