Management Information Sheet
Revised Admission Form and Guidance on Parental Responsibility
Revised Admission Form
The Admission Form used by schools to collect relevant data from parents about their child on admission into school has been revised as has the brief guidance notes. The revisions are necessary due to legislative changes and changes to the data that now has to be collected. A number of schools have been asked to review the revised form and make comments, for which we are grateful. These comments have been incorporated into the revision where appropriate. Please use the links above to access the revised form and guidance notes.
A change that has been broadly welcomed is the clarification supporting the collection of ethnicity data. Shading has also been introduced to help parents distinguish advice from the parts of the form they need to complete. It will also help clerical staff recognise potentially missing data.
Definition of a parent
A significant change for all schools is the use of the definition of parent from the 1996 Education Act. This has the effect of extending the range of people deemed to have parental responsibility for a child to include those acting as a parent and those who have care of the child. The impact of this for some schools could be significant as there is a legal requirement for schools to communicate with all people that have parental responsibility. Unfortunately it also falls to the school to use their best endeavours to ensure all communications reach the right people. So giving a letter to a pupil with the expectation that it will be passed on to all parties is unlikely to be acceptable in every case. It is recognised that resolving this could be both administratively and financially burdensome.
In response to this new pressure some schools have found using e-mail and web-sites a helpful way forward, but this needs to be done with care as experience shows that these developments need to be implemented as part of a holistic communications policy.
If you have experience useful to other schools of handling communications to disparate parents and/or using e-communications to help, please contact Alan Smith (contact details above) who will seek to pass this on.
The Admission Form used by schools to collect relevant data from parents about their child on admission into school has been revised as has the brief guidance notes. The revisions are necessary due to legislative changes and changes to the data that now has to be collected. A number of schools have been asked to review the revised form and make comments, for which we are grateful. These comments have been incorporated into the revision where appropriate. Please use the links above to access the revised form and guidance notes.
A change that has been broadly welcomed is the clarification supporting the collection of ethnicity data. Shading has also been introduced to help parents distinguish advice from the parts of the form they need to complete. It will also help clerical staff recognise potentially missing data.
Definition of a parent
A significant change for all schools is the use of the definition of parent from the 1996 Education Act. This has the effect of extending the range of people deemed to have parental responsibility for a child to include those acting as a parent and those who have care of the child. The impact of this for some schools could be significant as there is a legal requirement for schools to communicate with all people that have parental responsibility. Unfortunately it also falls to the school to use their best endeavours to ensure all communications reach the right people. So giving a letter to a pupil with the expectation that it will be passed on to all parties is unlikely to be acceptable in every case. It is recognised that resolving this could be both administratively and financially burdensome.
In response to this new pressure some schools have found using e-mail and web-sites a helpful way forward, but this needs to be done with care as experience shows that these developments need to be implemented as part of a holistic communications policy.
If you have experience useful to other schools of handling communications to disparate parents and/or using e-communications to help, please contact Alan Smith (contact details above) who will seek to pass this on.