Parents' joy as Gosforth Academy appeals upheld after school allocation system row

Parents and children have spoken of their joy after appeals for year nine pupils to get into their closest high school were upheld.

Parents staged a series of protests after a random allocation "tie break" system was used to place pupils at schools in the Gosforth Multi Academy Trust for the upcoming academic year. It saw some students who have gone through the Gosforth three tier system and live within a short walk of Gosforth Academy, allocated a place at Great Park Academy.

Some children were even separated from their siblings with the allocation for a school which is two-and-a-half miles away and still incomplete at the time of writing, while students from other local authority areas were granted places at Gosforth Academy. However, earlier this week 39 parents were notified that their children's appeals had been upheld and they would be going to their first choice school after all.

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Newcastle City Council confirmed to ChronicleLive on Friday that 42 appeals were made in total, with two withdrawn and a third offered prior to the appeal. Michelle Jones was one of several vocal parents who fought the Gosforth Multi Academy Trust's original decision.

Her daughter was the only person in her friendship group not offered a place at Gosforth Academy, and both mother and daughter are hugely relieved. Michelle said: "It's a massive, massive win. There's been so much happening and the appeals are obviously one element, but for the children who have been affected, it is huge.

"When my daughter came in and we told her, she was really, really emotional and straight on with her friends. She's got a completely different outlook because she's now going to the local school where her brother goes."

Deborah Burns' daughter Fran, was also placed at Great Park Academy despite living within 500 metres of Gosforth Academy. Her older sister, Jane, already studies at Gosforth Academy and both are delighted that they won't be split up.

Deborah told ChronicleLive: "We're absolutely thrilled and incredibly relieved. So is her older sister, Jane, who was quite upset about it as well.

"All the kids are absolutely overjoyed, they're going to go where they always though they were."

Parents say that their fight has not just been about getting their children into the school they feel they should have always gone to. They want to make sure that this year's admissions "fiasco" isn't repeated in the future.

Michelle Jones added: "Obviously the amount of work that's gone into this, it's not just been about appeals and getting the children in, it's been about righting a wrong and ensuring school processes are fair.

"While we've got this amazing decision and our children who wanted to go to Gosforth Academy are going to go there, we still have work to do in ensuring that the admissions processes protect children and are fair going forward, because the decisions this year weren't thought through."

"It's a shame we have had to go through all this distress at such a significant time in a young person's life. The impact on their mental and cognitive health is huge, and it's just a shame that this has happened, when if managed effectively, none of it needed to."

At a full Newcastle City Council meeting on Wednesday, ex-councillor Brian Moore slammed the Multi-Academy Trust's existing admissions policy, and alleged that it was in breach of local and national code. He called on the local authority to intervene, before it was public knowledge that the appeals had been upheld.

Coun Lesley Storey, of Newcastle City Council, responded: "Academy Trusts are the admissions authority for their schools, not local authorities. Newcastle City Council has no power to change academy policies or to challenge them unless they are unlawful, and in this case the understanding is that we cannot say the admissions policy is unlawful.

"I have been led to believe that Gosforth Group have committed to reviewing their admissions policies, which I think is a really good thing."

Coun Storey added: "My heart does go out to children who have had a very, very difficult time and I do firmly believe, and strongly wish, that local authorities did have more influence. But the fact of the matter is, we do not."

ChronicleLive made several attempts to get in touch with Gosforth Multi Academy Trust, none of which they had responded to at the time of publication.