Two years ago, Comprehensive Future published as a fact that: When asked how many pupils were admitted through these priority policies 80 schools responded, revealing that just 574 disadvantaged pupils were offered admission out of their 12,431 available places...… there were 22 selective schools who responded to say they had failed to admit a single disadvantaged pupil through their policies’. This claim was picked up by the media including the BBC. Unfortunately, this is twice completely false, as I demonstrated in an article last month after the organisation publicly attacked me for querying the data, repeating it in the process. False firstly, because the organisation had quoted completely the wrong data column from their own database, and secondly because the whole database is self-evidently rubbish. As I wrote then, a prime example of the ICT mantra Garbage in, garbage out.
I have now been informed by CF’s Chairman, Nuala Burgess, that CF is not prepared to discuss the matter further, the bogus claims remain on their website and that of the BBC and so this must cast doubt on any other claims made by CF on data they have harvested to forward their aims.
This all arose because last month I published a lengthy article exploring the highs and lows of Kent and Medway grammar school admissions of children attracting Pupil Premium. In a minor comment towards the end, I briefly referred to CF and the obvious falsehood of their claim. This so upset the organisation that its Campaigning Officer Joanne Bartley challenged me, conducting what she defined as a confidential correspondence which suddenly became a public attack on me on their website when I had refuted each of her arguments, but repeating the false claims. My proof that these were untrue is set out in a second article.
What has astonished me is that the organisation, knowing their published data is false, has refused to acknowledge this. It could easily have done so in the ‘private’ correspondence, or simply taken down the false data quietly to avoid embarrassment. Instead, it publicly poured scorn on my discovery then refused to discuss it further, presumably content to have damaged the image of these schools. As Mrs Bartley has made clear, CF is a private organisation and so not accountable in the same way as the schools themselves.
Interestingly, when repeating the data harvest again this year, Joanne Bartley has greatly simplified her FOI request to schools, presumably to avoid getting confused by the responses again, if indeed that is the reason for the false data. I would hope it was not deliberate but in view of CF's refusal to discuss the matter, this must be a possibility.
To be clear, my initial article was neither pro nor anti-selection but simply an analysis of the current situation as both Kent County and Medway Councils face difficult challenges to maintain the proportion of Pupil Premium children through their grammar school selection processes in this difficult year.