People can have their say on the future of secondary school admissions after councillors agreed to hold a public consultation.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet approved the eight-week consultation after an hour and a half of debate and questions today (Thursday 5 December).
The council is to consult on plans to cut admission numbers, change the criteria and adjust two catchment areas.
The proposed changes are partly in response to the falling birth rate which has left schools with hundreds of empty classroom places.
The effects have been felt in primary schools for some years and are expected to mean that 500 fewer secondary school places will be needed over the next five years.
Council leader Bella Sankey said: “As a Labour administration, we stood on a platform driven by our values of achieving greater equality and fairness in all aspects of society.
“The social segregation in our schools has been an issue in Brighton and Hove for many years and is something that we are rightly seeking to address.”
Deputy leader Jacob Taylor said that the consultation would listen to the input of parents, school leaders, governors and pupils.
When it comes to the final decision, Councillor Taylor said that the council could choose to pursue some of the proposals in the consultation but not others.
He said: “We are trying to break down some of the divides that we have seen in this city – divides and inequalities that cut across many areas.”
Councillor Taylor said that the council has never guaranteed a space at a catchment area school since it introduced the concept in 2007.
He said that the consultation proposals were just the start of the conversation with parents about creating an equal education system in the city.
The consultation will ask people’s views on adjusting the joint catchment area for Varndean and Dorothy Stringer and the neighbouring Longhill catchment.
The proposals would move children with a BN2 5 postcode north of Manor Way and Manor Hill out of the Longhill catchment and into the Dorothy Stringer and Varndean catchment.
Meanwhile, children living in BN2 1 and BN2 5 south of Manor Way and Manor Hill would move out of the Stringer and Varndean catchment and into the Longhill catchment.
People will also be asked about reducing the year 7 intakes in September 2026 at three schools:
• Longhill – down from 270 to 210 pupils
• Blatchington Mill – down from 330 to 300 pupils
• Dorothy Stringer – down from 330 to 300 pupils
The consultation also seeks views about a proposed new “open admissions” criteria. This would increase choice for those living in catchment areas with a single school.
It would give children living in the PACA, BACA, Patcham High and Longhill High catchments a better chance of a place at schools such as Dorothy Stringer, Varndean, Blatchington Mill or Hove Park.
The council is planning to hold a number of public meetings online and in person
• Thursday 12 December from 10am to 11.30am online
• Tuesday 7 January from 6pm to 7.30pm in person at Hove Town Hall – to be confirmed (TBC)
• Saturday 11 January from 10.30am to noon in person at the Jubilee Library – TBC
Further meetings are proposed in other parts of the city, including working with community and voluntary groups to reach underrepresented communities.
The consultation is due to be on the Your Voice section of the council’s website, ending on Friday 31 January.
Academies, free schools and faith schools are able to set their own admissions criteria – BACA, PACA, the King’s School and Cardinal Newman Catholic School.
Seemingly if you live within the Stringer/Varndean catchment area and aren’t in receipt of free school meals then your first child has LESS of a chance to get a place at a local school than someone who lives outside of the catchment area!
That is just completely flawed and unfortunately symptomatic of the council’s proposal which shows they have totally disregarded the feedback provided in the initial ‘engagement’ exercise and will cause additional deep rooted issues for years to come with significant numbers of children being randomly selected to travel across the city for 190 days a year without achieving the outcome the council is seeking.
Children being made into political pawns – Brighton residents overwhelmingly rejected option b in the previous phase and will surely react even more strongly to this…
Yes, completely flawed proposal. This was made clear at the cabinet meeting but ignored. And how can we believe the council will listen to responses this time round when they have roundly rejected feedback from the engagement exercise. Instead we must all go through another consultation, then undoubtedly the schools adjudicator, while we limp on to the next election. Unless the secondary schools decide to become academies – there would be a lot of support for this! The council clearly can’t be trusted to run the admissions system.