Department for Education written question – answered at on 11 November 2014.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 3 November 2014 to the hon. Member for Huddersfield to Question 211964, what derogations from the Admissions Code have been allowed in 54 free schools and three academies; and what the demonstrable evidence is that such derogations benefit local children.
All academies and free schools must comply with the School Admissions Code. This ensures their admission arrangements are fair, clear and objective.
It is through the Funding Agreement that the Secretary of State has agreed different arrangements (‘derogations’ from the Code) for academies and free schools, but only in limited circumstances, where there is demonstrable evidence that it will benefit local children.
On opening, all free schools are permitted to allocate places outside of local authority co-ordination in their first year only; while all academy schools that have opened since 2012 can grant admissions priority to pupils eligible for the pupil and service premiums. The revised School Admissions Code currently before the House proposes extending this freedom to all state-funded schools.
In addition, we have granted school specific derogations in the following areas:
In one free school, we have agreed as a transitional measure that children in an annex of a nearby maintained school which closed would be transferred to the new free school without having to apply. This enabled those displaced children to access good quality local provision.
Three school specific derogations have been agreed for academies, as follows:
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