Parents protest at ‘shrunk’ school catchment

Buyers of homes well within earlier limits miss out on places after leading secondary’s intake cut

A TOP state school “shrunk its catchment area” without warning parents who bought nearby houses, families have claimed.

Dozens of families bought houses in St Albans, Hertfordshire, with the expectation that they would be in the right postcode for their children to get a place at Beaumont School, a secondary school rated as outstanding by Ofsted.

However, parents say they were dismayed to learn on Friday they had not been offered a place, despite some living as close as a six-minute walk from the school gate. This year, the furthest distance between the school and the home of a child given a place in the catchment area was 511 metres (1,676 feet), down from 873 metres (2,865 feet) last year.

Many children who have missed out on a place face an hour’s walk to schools that have accepted them instead.

Joey Kwong, an IT project manager, said she was stunned to learn her son Brayden had not been offered a place, despite living 512 metres away. She said she bought the house at the end of 2022 to get a place at the school, which has convenient commuter links to London.

She said: “We want Brayden, our son, to be able to walk to secondary school so I can get back to full-time working.”

Ms Kwong said it was “shocking” they had not been given a place. Brayden has instead been offered a place at a boy’s school about one mile away from the house. Aasha Shamsuddin, a mother of twins, said she missed out on places for her children despite living 687 metres away from the school gate. The family bought their home in 2020, when they appeared to be “well within” the catchment area, she said. Her twins have now been split up, with her daughter given a place at a school an hour’s walk away, or requiring two buses, and her son going to a local boys’ school.

The school’s list of parishes in its catchment area has not changed, which means it did not need a public consultation. Its effective catchment area shrunk because the number of places available for Year 7 pupils fell from 240 to 210.

Martin Atkinson, its head teacher, said the school’s website made its published admissions number of 210 “very clear” and said he gave four speeches in which it was “clearly conveyed”. The school blamed Hertfordshire county council, which handles its admissions.

Beaumont’s published admissions number has remained static at 210 for several years but the council asked it to increase places to 240 temporarily for the past two years to cater for a bulge in population. The school said it was “very willing” to increase pupil intake to 240 permanently. It said the council decided to allocate those places to other schools.

Henry Gregg, another parent, said there had been “no public consultation” on the decision to reduce places.

Caroline Clapper, Hertfordshire county council’s executive member for education, told the BBC that every child in St Albans had been offered a place at a school within walking distance.

In a letter to the Department for Education, Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Albans, said the claim was “at odds with the evidence shared with me by distressed parents”.

The DFE was contacted for comment. ♦ A school has sent staff to watch bins and cars at absent pupils’ homes to catch out families on term-time holidays. Parents were told if they lie to Astrea Academy Woodfields in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, staff will use home checks to establish the truth.