- What they mean and what you can do
- The process
- Actions you can take
- The Council’s proposals covered in the consultation
What they mean and what you can do
The Council has concluded it’s formal consultation on changes to secondary school admissions and is now deciding what changes to proceed with. This consultation was different from the earlier ‘engagement exercise’ on options A, B and C. Those options were dropped due to the level of public opposition and the consultation was based on a new set of proposals.
The combined effect of the Council’s most recent proposal would be that nearly 250 children are unable to get a place at a school within their catchment area. These students would then have a lower priority than any other students to access other schools. The implication is that they would only be able to get places at schools with spare spaces. These places are likely to be concentrated at BACA, PACA and Longhill High School.
The Council’s consultation was about several different proposals. The overall effect depends on the combination of proposals. The Council might decide to introduce some, all or none of them.
The main proposals that affect the chances of a child getting a place within the catchment area they live in are:
- Reducing the number of places at Dorothy Stringer and Blatchington Mill. Dorothy Stringer and Blatchington Mill are in the two catchment areas with the most children and are both regularly oversubscribed.
- Changing the catchment area boundaries for Dorothy Stringer/Varndean and Longhill. This would add between 20 and 80 children to the Stringer/Varndean catchment area, depending on whether the Council makes one or both of the proposed changes.
- Introducing a 20% open application priority for children outside the catchment area. This would effectively reduce the number of places available by 120 in the Stringer/Varndean catchment area, 96 in the Hove Park/Blatchington Mill catchment area and 45 in the Patcham catchment area.
- Increasing the proportion of places that are prioritised for children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) to 30%. The effect of this will depend on how it is implemented, which is not yet clear, but it is likely to reduce the number of spaces for children living in the Stringer/Varndean, Hove Park/ Blatchington Mill and Patcham catchment areas.
The full set of proposals are covered in our discussion of the Consultation questions.
The combined effect of these proposals, according to the Council’s own numbers, would be that nearly 250 children would not get places in their catchment area schools:
- 144 children in the Dorothy Stringer/Varndean catchment area
- 57 children in the Hove Park/Blatchington Mill catchment area
- 44 children in the Patcham catchment area
This impact will fall on first born children who are not eligible for free school meals.
The actual number could be higher as explained in the Parent Support Group’s visual explainer. The difference depends on how the FSM priority admission rule is applied, particularly whether it would be additional to children with a sibling link who are eligible for free school meals.
The process
The Council ran a public engagement exercise on three options for changing catchment areas. All three options met with widespread opposition. There was particularly strong opposition to ‘Option B’, which would have involved very long journeys to school for large numbers of students. In response to widespread opposition, the Council dropped all its initial proposals.
The Council moved to a formal consultation on a new set of proposals. These are very different to the earlier options but would also involve long journeys to school for large numbers of students.
The consultation will ran until the end of January. Now, the Council must decide what changes it is going to make to its admissions arrangements (its “determination”).
Any decisions the Council makes will have to comply with the requirements of the School Admissions Code. The Schools Adjudicator has the responsibility for ensuring that school admissions arrangements across the country comply with the Code.
The Council unfinished, unsatisfactory and contradictory documentation for its proposals which changed on a number of occasions throughout the process. A consultation on school admissions would normally provide documents designed for public engagement and we do not know why the Council has not provided a clear explanation or impact assessment of its proposals. In the absence of this, we have done the best we can to understand the proposals.
The Council’s proposals covered in the consultation
The Council’s online consultation asks people to comment separately on each of its proposals. The proposals have different and sometimes contradictory effects. For the Stringer/Varndean and Blatchington Mill/Hove Park catchment areas, the combined effect is to increase the number of students seeking a place at a school within the catchment area at the same time as reducing the number of places available. We have tried to summarise each proposal focusing on the impact on people living in those catchment areas.
1. Increasing the Published Admission Number (PAN) at Rudyard Kipling Primary School
You could choose to express no view on this question unless you are directly affected. The School Admissions Code says that there is generally a presumption in favour of increasing places at popular schools. The rest of the consultation is about secondary schools.
2. Setting the allocation of free school meals
This proposal would increase the proportion of children who are eligible for free school meals from the city average to 30%. These places are allocated first to children within the catchment area. The remaining places under this quota would then be allocated to children outside the catchment area. This could reduce the number of places available for children living within the catchment area.
3. Introduction of new admission priority: open admission
This proposal would reserve 20% of places in each catchment area for children living outside the catchment area in an area with only one school. These children would get priority over children within the catchment area who do not have a sibling link and are not eligible for free school meals.
Our analysis suggests that, combined with the Council’s other proposals, it would mean only 25%, or 1 in 4, of these children in the Stringer/Varndean catchment would get a place at either of those schools. These children would then have a low priority in applying to other schools because they would not be eligible for the open admission priority. The Council’s justification is that these children had a choice of two schools in their catchment area even if they didn’t get into either of those schools. This part of the proposal appears to be designed to send large numbers of children from the Stringer/Varndean and Hove Park/Blatchington Mill catchment areas to BACA, PACA and Longhill. For many of those students, these will be the schools that are furthest from where they live. You can use the Council’s website to check which schools are furthest from your house. Schools Portal – Map Overview
4. Introduction of new admission priority: open admission percentage
The Council’s calculations are based on a 20% open admission percentage, but this question asks about alternative percentages. The Council does not provide any data on the impact of different percentages. Any percentage of the open admission priority would therefore increase the number of children who are not able to attend a catchment school, particularly for the Stringer/Varndean catchment area, which would be oversubscribed anyway.
5. Reducing the Published Admission Number (PAN) at Blatchington Mill School
Blatchington Mill is a popular school that is regularly oversubscribed. Cutting the number of places at Blatchington Mill would reduce the number of students who are able to attend their preferred school. Combined with the other proposals, which prioritise out of catchment children over those living in the catchment and increase the size of the catchment area, this cut would lead to more students not getting a place at a catchment area school. The School Admissions Code says that there is generally a presumption in favour of increasing places at popular schools.
6. Reducing the Published Admission Number (PAN) at Dorothy Stringer School
Dorothy Stringer is a popular school that is regularly oversubscribed. Cutting the number of places at Dorothy Stringer would reduce the number of students who are able to attend their preferred school. Combined with the other proposals, which prioritise out of catchment children over those living in the catchment, and increase the number of children living in the catchment through a catchment boundary change, this cut would lead to more students not getting a place at a catchment area school. The School Admissions Code says that there is generally a presumption in favour of increasing places at popular schools.
7. Reducing the Published Admission Number (PAN) at Longhill High School
Longhill School is regularly undersubscribed as many children within the catchment area choose to attend schools elsewhere. Longhill has not admitted more than 200 students for over a decade. This means that the reduction will not affect the number of students able to attend Longhill. It also means that a large proportion of the Council’s surplus places will continue to be at Longhill, which impacts on the rest of the school system. Having an excessively high PAN can also be destabilising for a school because it makes it difficult to plan accurately for how many students will be admitted each year.
8. Changes to catchment areas
The proposal is to make two changes to the Stringer/Varndean and Longhill catchment areas to:
- Move Whitehawk out of the Longhill catchment area into the Stringer/Varndean catchment area.
- Move Kemptown and the Bristol Estate in the opposite direction – out of the Stringer/Varndean catchment area into the Longhill catchment area.
We don’t know whether the Council is likely to seek to implement both these changes, neither or only one of them. The Council’s data suggests that the effect of these proposals taken together would be to add roughly 20 students per year to the Stringer/Varndean catchment area. Adding Whitehawk to the Stringer/Varndean catchment without removing Kemptown and the Bristol Estate might add roughly 80 students per year to the catchment area.
These changes would change the social mix between the two catchments. It would increase the proportion of children on Free School Meals slightly for the Stringer/Varndean catchment and reduce it in the Longhill catchment.
Changes to catchment areas are easier to make when there is clear support from the communities that are affected and more difficult to make when there is opposition from the communities that are affected. The Council has not yet provided clear evidence of support for these catchment changes from either of the affected areas.
9. Increase the number of preferences you can put down from 3 to 4
The implications of this change are unclear. The Council says it is intended to encourage families to take advantage of the free school meals priority and the open admission priority. An increased number of preferences could also give children who are unable to attend their catchment schools greater scope to choose other options, although they would still be restricted to schools that are undersubscribed. It is usually the schools on the outskirts of the city that have spaces – BACA, PACA and Longhill. If you do not get any of your preferred schools the council will allocate you the closest school with a place once other students have been allocated their preferences.
10. Relevant area – within the city boundary
This is the area within which the Council needs to consult about changes to its school admissions arrangements. It seems reasonable to keep this as the boundaries of the City. There is no obvious reason to object to this proposal.
11. Coordinated scheme of admissions
The coordinated scheme of admissions explains how the Council will manage the admissions process. We have not yet been able to look at this closely, but we believe that the Council should explain exactly what changes it is proposing to this scheme and why.
The Council’s own numbers
This table is based on the Council’s own analysis of the likely impact of their proposals. We think the real numbers could be higher as indicated in the visual explainer.
| September 2026 | Published Admission Numbers (PAN) | No. pupils in catchment area requiring a catchment area school | No. FSM places available for out of catchment pupils | No. of open admission places available | No. of pupils unable to be placed in catchment area schools(s) |
| PACA | 220 | 221 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Hove Pk & Blatch Mill | 480 | 434 | 7 | 96 | 57 |
| DS & Varndean | 600 | 624 | 0 | 120 | 144* |
| Longhill | 210 | 175 | 0 | 42 | 0 |
| Patcham | 225 | 205 | 19 | 45 | 44 |
| BACA | 180 | 129 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* NB: The Council’s table said there would be 125 students not getting a place in the Stringer/Varndean catchment area, but their numbers suggest this figure is incorrect and should actually be 144. This was queried in the PSG deputation to Cabinet, but the Council has chosen not to explain or correct its calculation.