Mum’s fury over boy’s two-bus school trek

EMMA GILL

AMUM says it’s ‘outrageous’ her son will have to get two buses to school more than an hour away after he missed out on his chosen secondary.

Ashlea Roberts had applied for her son to start Woodhey High School in Ramsbottom, from September.

But despite living a fiveminute drive away in Walmsley, 10-year-old Landon Harding has been offered a place at Prestwich High School instead.

It means the youngster, who currently attends St Andrews Church of England Primary in Ramsbottom, would need to take two buses to get there in a journey lasting well over an hour.

Ashlea said she’d not yet been able to break the news to her son, as she knows how devastated he’ll be.

“I know I’m going to have to sit down and tell him that I’ll fight it, but I’m worried how he’s going to react,” she said.

“He has some emotional issues which stem from his granddad dying and it means he struggles to cope with certain things. He’ll be so upset because he’s been so excited to go there.”

The mum says their nearest high schools are Elton High and Derby High, but says lots of children living near them go to Woodhey, including older son Luke, who is in his final year.

“He was so looking forward to following in his brother’s footsteps and going to Woodhey,” she said. “All my son’s friends are going to Woodhey, we live a five-minute drive from it, I work in Ramsbottom and all his friends and links are there.

“I don’t know how they expect my poor son to travel over one hour to school on two buses, at age 11, with no street experience to a school where he knows noone and has no knowledge of the area. This is outrageous.”

Self-employed cleaner Ashlea, who is appealing the decision, says she put

Tottington High as second choice, but Bury Council has told her only Woodhey was on her application.

She added: “If they’d offered him somewhere like Tottington or Derby it wouldn’t have been an issue but it’s not safe for him to travel that far. His school has been considering helping him with special educational needs, but things had calmed down so we didn’t have anything like that as part of his application.

“He does need routine though and this is going to be so unsettling for him.

“Society and media are always stressing about mental health and social issues among children yet this will cause great anxiety for Landon.”

Bury Council’s criteria gives priority to children in care, or previously looked after children. After that it takes into consideration catchment and siblings.

Woodhey’s headteacher Brian Roadnight said: “All admissions for Woodhey High School are managed by the local authority. We are only aware of the names of pupils who have been allocated a place at Woodhey. We should take 210 pupils in September 2020. After a request from the local authority, we have agreed to take 230 pupils.”

A Bury Council spokesperson said that all Bury residents had received an offer of a school place - with 83.9 per cent receiving their first preference offer and 94.9 receiving one of their preference schools.

She said: “I can confirm that an application for transfer to secondary school 2020 was received by the LA Admissions Team for this child. There was only one preference stated on the application form which was a considerable distance from the home address, almost 2.5 miles, and unfortunately places could not be offered to anyone who lived further than 1.750 miles away from the school, in line with the published admissions criteria.

“The school requested was not the nearest school to the home address, there are in fact six schools closer but none of these were stated as preferences.”

●● Landon Harding

The spokesperson added: “As regards Prestwich, the local authority has to make an offer of a school place to all our residents and because only one preference was stated, the child couldn’t be considered for any more schools and therefore received an offer of the nearest school with a vacancy.”