2 Panel discussion: From preference to choice - should school admissions be liberalised?

in partnership with Reform Chair: Amy Finch, Senior Researcher, Reform Speakers: Dr Rebecca Allen, Director of Education Datalab; Dale Bassett, Co-Founder, Compass School, Southwark; Dr Elizabeth Passmore, OBE, Chief Schools Adjudicator, The Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA); Professor Toby Salt, Chief Executive, Ormiston Academies Trust The school reforms of the last three decades aimed to activate parental choice by increasing access to information about school performance. As a result, parents now have more information about schools than ever before through more data in the league tables and qualitative information in Ofsted reports. Yet parents’ ability to choose on the basis of this information remains restricted by schools’ admissions policies. While parents can theoretically apply to any school in the country, most oversubscribed state-funded schools give priority on the basis of who lives closest to the school, which effectively ties choice to residence, and hence in large measure to wealth or earnings. Meanwhile efforts to expand choice in terms of the type of schools available, and more recently to allow schools a measure of discretion to select, have tended to focus on faith or ability. These policies raise important concerns about equitable access to good quality schools, and about whether the full benefit of parental choice, in respect of its potential to improve pupil outcomes, is being realised. This panel session will consider the different facets of admissions policy restricting parental choice, such as locality, faith and ability. It will consider the potential benefits from liberalising school admissions and the policies that could help maximise school choice through admissions.