Private schools urged to adopt Ucas system

PRIVATE schools should adopt a Ucasstyle application system to stop children being left with nowhere to go in September, a leading headmaster says.

Under the current set-up, 11-year-old pupils may be forced by parents to sit multiple entrance exams, according to Stephen Lehec, head of the £18,000-ayear Kingston Grammar School.

If independent schools adopted a similar approach to the university application system, he argued, this would mean children could sit just one exam for all schools, and allow parents to prioritise their choices.

He said that at the moment, the whole rigmarole of getting a place at a highly competitive school was a “gam- ble”, as schools could make more offers than they had places for, only to withdraw some at a later date.

“As schools cannot forecast with any degree of certainty how many children will start in September, because parents can make any number of applications and even accept multiple offers, they always make more offers than there are places,” Mr Lehec told The Sunday Telegraph. “If, as the admissions deadline approaches, schools realise they do not have the capacity to make good on those offers, they may start to withdraw them.

“In effect, that means schools may be forced to operate on a ‘first-comefirst-served’ basis even before the admissions deadline is reached.”

He explained how parents who thought they had a guaranteed place for their child could suddenly have it taken away from them.

Last month, an independent girls’ school was criticised by parents for its first-come-first-served offer system.

The £17,000-a-year City of London School for Girls sent letters offering more youngsters places than it actually had available.