I spend an hour on Wednesday evening, at the Radio Kent studio in Tunbridge Wells talking on the Graham Jones show, in company with Sally Lees, Principal of the Homewood School and Sixth Form Centre. Not surprisingly, our main topic was secondary school transfer and what to do if children had not been awarded one of their preferences. Naturally we widened the discussion including what makes a good school, whether parental choice was a good thing, why there were 837 Kent children with none of their choices, and how to increase provision to cope with rising rolls. The discussion was given a spice as we two guests tended to have a different perspective on a number of issues!
This was the second occasion we sparred, although we were both very concerned about the pressure on places, with six of Kent's 12 districts having no vacancies in any school and a further 496 places being added somehow at schools across the county, to head off the pressure of place.
KCC data reveals there is considerable polarisation partly driven by the unpopularity of nine schools in different Districts, which between them account for 633 of the Local Authority Allocations, or over three quarters of the total.
I shall be publishing further details of oversubscription and vacancies shortly.