Last week, the West London Free School went out with offers to parents who’ve applied for places in September and it’s not an exaggeration to say my phone’s been ringing ever since.
The first category of callers are disappointed parents who haven’t been offered places. We had nine applications for every place this year, making us the most popular school in the borough, so there’s no shortage of angry mums. I tell them, truthfully, that there’s nothing I can do. School governors have a certain amount of latitude when it comes to admissions criteria, but once they’ve been finalised it is up to the local bureaucrats to apply them. Either the applicant has met the criteria or he/she hasn’t.
More tricky are those parents who’ve been offered places and can’t decide whether to take them up. For the most part, these are good, honest folk asking intelligent questions about genuine issues such as what will become of our school if Labour wins a majority in 2015.
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