Fair banding assessments like the ones we use have come in for their fair share of criticism. This week, however, Trinity became the first academy trust to be awarded the Fair School Admissions gold award by social mobility champions, The Sutton Trust.
We predominantly work in areas of high deprivation, and we believe strongly that a school’s cohort should reflect its local community. Fair banding assessments support us to deliver that, serving the needs of the most vulnerable.
Our assessments are created and marked externally by GL Assessment, who also allocate pupils into bands. We communicate these results to local authority admissions teams, who allocate pupils accordingly.
Trinity schools span five local authorities, and have often been the first in an area to use fair banding assessments. In these cases, we have invested in training local authority staff in the approach. Invariably, the upshot is that they begin to explore rolling the practice out borough-wide.
Nevertheless, some look at our practice and cry ‘selection by stealth!’, believing this to be a mechanism to produce higher-attaining Year 7 cohorts.
My response is twofold: I explain the nuances of fair banding (because there are different versions) and I produce the data, showing the impact of a policy that has been in place for several years now.
The need to act
Its moral imperative is evident in the way the policy came about in the first place.
Essentially, the success of our founding school since its 2010 opening (including three ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted reports and a host of DfE designations) resulted in more expensive housing being built near the school.
The ‘circle of admissions’ was contracting. Over time, admissions were increasingly determined by which families could afford to buy the new houses.
While this policy may not eradicate that completely, it does mitigate against it to an extent and gives local children a more equitable chance of gaining entry into their local school.
Like for like
First, it ensures that the cohort of pupils we admit matches exactly the profile of the pupils who apply to our schools.
Some models of ‘fair banding’ impose equally-sized attainment bands. This can artificially over-represent high prior attainers and under-represent low prior attainers, meaning those who are proportionately most likely to be disadvantaged end up having to travel further to other schools.
Instead, our model matches the size of our attainment bands to the overall attainment of the applying cohort. We also complement this with our oversubscription criteria, which prioritises distance from the school, thereby guaranteeing local children benefit from our practice.
Fair access
Additionally, we spend a lot of time ensuring that there are no misconceptions about the fair banding assessment.
A regular criticism of the practice is that parents who can afford it can gain unfair advantage for their children by investing in tutoring, like they might with the 11+.
We ensure parents know their child cannot ‘pass or fail’ our assessment, and that there are no benefits in attempting to be allocated to a higher-attaining band.
Another factor in accessibility, some fair banding assessments have been criticised for being held at weekends and in somewhat distant testing centres, again disfavouring the most disadvantaged families.
We offer to administer the assessment in all local primary schools, an offer that is widely and gratefully accepted.
Proof of the pudding
The effect has been profound. Sign-up has been significant and relations with local primaries further cemented. Best of all, the data trends across our schools show that both ‘average distance to school’ and ‘furthest distance from the school’ have decreased.
Furthermore, the percentage of pupils living nearer the schools has increased while the percentages of those living further afield have decreased.
Meanwhile, the makeup of the cohort, regarding prior attainment and the percentage of pupils with SEND has remained broadly similar, while the percentages of disadvantaged pupils and looked-after children have increased.
No admissions policy is perfect, but this is clearly working for the communities we serve. Cohorts remain representative of the local area, perhaps even a little more so than before.
In short, it is equitable, inclusive and easy to follow.
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