Report
Education Committee
19 May 2015
DUMFRIES LEARNING TOWN – CAPPING PAPER
1.
Reason for Report
1.1
Dumfries Learning Town (DLT) is a strategic programme of our school estate in
Dumfries that will deliver transformational change in how staff, pupils and parents work
together across the Burgh of Dumfries. As part of this programme, we have identified a
need to introduce transitional procedures for primary and secondary schools.
1.2
We have identified the need to cap school numbers based on historical data, school
design capacities, actual and projected data for schools in Dumfries to support this
process. Capping will enable us to plan for change, work creatively across associated
schools supporting the key aim of Dumfries Learning Town to ensure equality irrespective
of where you live in the Burgh.
2.
Recommendations
Members are asked to:2.1
note the Vision for Dumfries Learning Town for an offering of equal opportunity
irrespective of post code or geographical location (Appendix 1);
2.2
agree the proposal to introduce capping processes from August 2016 onwards for
the duration of the implementation of Dumfries Learning Town Development until 2022
(Appendices 2 and 3);
2.3
note information on the current methodology for establishing primary and secondary
capacities based on functional design capacities of our school estate; and
2.4
agree that the revised capping and capacities should be used when undertaking a
review of Catchment/Zones for Nursery, Primary and Secondary schools in Dumfries.
3.
Considerations
3.1
We have reviewed the current use of the Dumfries school estate and projected
capping of the school roll for a whole town delivery approach as outlined in the vision for
DLT. Dumfries has four secondary schools, one of which is a denominational school that
currently has two Roman Catholic associated primary schools in Dumfries, St Teresa’s RC
and St Andrews RC. The other three secondary schools share Twenty five primary
schools. Maxwelltown High School has six primary schools, Dumfries Academy has six
and Dumfries High School has eleven. The constitution, history and ‘perceived’ quality of
the school estate also creates’ its own patterns of pupil movement that does not
necessarily reflect catchment zones or indeed the cluster transition programmes in place
to support Learners. The creation of a new learning Hub – a dedicated learning
environment will also accommodate 326 pupils from either primary and/or secondary at
any one time has also been considered.
3.2
Key highlight statistics show us that:
 The authority currently provides education for 3,500 primary and 2,424 secondary
pupils in Dumfries;
 1,585 (45%) of our primary pupils do not attend their designated catchment primary
school;
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1,711 (70%) of our secondary pupils do not attend their catchment secondary
school;
Just under 200 pupils from the town migrate to Wallace Hall Academy;
over 50%, 389 + pupils migrate from Northwest Dumfries to the other three
secondary schools and outwith Dumfries;
St Joseph’s College is a Roman Catholic School, which has a significant number of
non-denominational pupils who are admitted as a result of parents having made a
successful ‘placing request’. The majority of pupils attend from Dumfries schools
with a small percentage from Annan, Lockerbie, Moffat and Thornhill; and
The new capping numbers for our secondary schools and Hub facility reflect the
need to reduce our school estate by 1,000 pupils to reflect demographics.
3.3
This creates a challenging patchwork of threats and opportunities. A whole town
solution approach is suggested acknowledging the considerable pupil movement across
the town at primary and secondary stages.
3.4
In regards to Nursery pupils we do not have Nursery catchments as in a school
catchment. These are referred to as ‘zones’ to differentiate from any legal
requirement. The zones are based on school catchments and because not every school
has a nursery, a number of catchments are bundled. To consolidate this capping paper a
review of catchments and zones would be required to support this process.
3.5
DLT vision has been created in response to pressing issues relating to the school
estate, perceived and real inequities in provision across the town and an agreed need to
improve opportunities for learning a wider range of skills in a wider range of school,
workplace and college contexts (Appendix 1).
3.6
Each primary and secondary school currently promotes and develops its own
distinctive character and ethos, consistency of opportunity. DLT will provide the framework
for learning experiences for pupils as they move through the different stages of their
education no matter their location (primary and secondary catchment), ability or aspiration.
This approach will minimise issues that arise with movement between schools whether
transfer or transition at all stages of learning and not just at the historical points from
nursery to primary, primary to secondary.
3.7
A strategic management of pupil rolls is needed to utilise limited resources in order
to provide a consistency for ALL pupils in the town no matter where they attend primary
and secondary provision.
3.8
Dumfries and Galloway Council operates a policy where children living in a
catchment area (defined by postcode) are expected to go to the same local school.
Denominational schools can have large catchment areas that overlap those of nondenominational schools. The size of the school, the current roll and number of children
who already live in the catchment area and other factors will affect our Council's ability to
grant a placing request. If a pupil attends a school outwith their catchment they are
referred to as ‘extra territorial’.
3.9
Our Council has an obligation to assess requests from outwith any designated
(catchment) areas (wherever possible). If a child has additional support needs our Council
has a duty to grant a request for a place in a specified school, subject to case-by-case
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19 May 2015
circumstances. The law relating to placing requests also applies with regard to a change
of school, or at the start of primary or secondary school.
3.10 The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 empowers Local Authorities to reserve places,
not exceeding such number or percentage of places at the school or relating to a particular
stage of education, as are in the opinion of the Education Authority reasonably required to
accommodate pupils likely to become resident in the catchment area of the school during
the academic year.
3.11 The Dumfries and Galloway Councils Enrolment policy was agreed by Education
Committee in December 2009 and revised in January 2010 and again in January 2014. Its
purpose was to offer clarity with regards to how the Council deals with enrolments and
requests for places at local pre-school, primary and secondary schools from parents of
prospective pupils. The Council also provides parents of pupils enrolling in Primary One
with this information in the form of a booklet entitled ‘Basic Information for Parents’.
3.12 As part of the Outline Business Case for DLT approved by Council on 19 December
2013 a significant piece of work was undertaken on modelling from our core data on pupil
rolls in order to optimise pupil numbers with school estate development plans. This work
also reflected the use of a new central resource (The Hub) for primary and secondary
schools in the town with specialist facilities for use by all learners.
3.13 We know that in Dumfries 45% of our primary pupils do not attend their catchment
primary school. This trend is one of the variables that the Council needs to plan for when
re-creating a school estate for a whole town solution as parental choice will remain a
contributing factor.
3.14 For our secondary pupils this figure rises to over 70% attending non- catchment
schools. Therefore this challenges the management of staffing and school estate resource
when it is difficult to predict the different capacities that might be required in future
provision.
New Model
3.15 To enable this process to be effective the schools need to be capped initially at
Primary 1 and Secondary 1 and then review capping at each stage of learning to be able
to ensure there is a consistent policy due to the number of composite classes in our
smaller Dumfries Schools . The proposal in Appendix 2 will inform our process of place
allocation for pupils.
3.16 For primary this is based on the following capacities formula. Current legislation for
the following needs to be adhered to;
 Composite classes - maximum 25 pupils; PI – 25; P2 & P3 – 30;
 P4-P7 Non-composite classes - maximum 33 pupils;
 General Purpose (GP) room allocation in functional capacity Primary Schools
should not be used as per guidance;
 All Schools with 5 or less classrooms will have a capacity limit of 25 for each room
unless the physical capacity of a particular room is less than 25;
 All schools with more than 5 classrooms will have the first 5 smallest classrooms
capped at 25 (or less depending upon the physical capacity) and any additional
rooms capped at 33 (or less depending on the physical capacity); and
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3.17
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3.18
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Single teacher schools will always be capped at 19 pupils.
Primary Schools Capping Projections has considered the following:
Composition of classes in relation to room capacity;
Avoiding the need to employ an additional teacher due to the placing of extra
pupils;
Avoiding the need to incur extra expenditure on extending or altering the existing
building;
pupil rolls, trends and projected rolls using NHS birth data;
Trends in territorial and extra territorial pupils;
Accommodation or facilities;
The potential of additional pupils from new housing development should be a factor
for consideration. It should be advised that by allowing this, there is the potential for
extra territorial pupils gain access to a school prior to any development proceeding
thereby, precluding territorial pupils;
The Authority must be able to cap individual stages within a particular school
without the need to cap the whole school (modelling of NHS data from P1 onwards
for primary and S1 projections for secondary);
The Authority must be able to cap the whole school where the capacity has been
reached; and
NHS data does not gather information about Catholic children and therefore it is
challenging to predict the catholic uptake in primary particularly and can therefore
challenge modelling.
Reserve places scenario
Agrees to limit the P1 intakes of the named primary schools in the first instance for
August 2016 to ensure that the number of classes within each school does not
exceed the functional capacity within the existing pupil numbers;
Primary Schools – The decision to cap a primary school is based on the number of
primary classes the school can accommodate rather than the number of pupils.
(Appendix 3). Owing to a number of demands in certain primary schools, there are
a number of schools where roll capping is now required to ensure that sufficient
classroom space remains available. It is proposed that P1 intakes to these schools
are limited so that the optimum number of classes within the schools is not
exceeded.;
Where there is no other school within a two mile radius (Pupils under 8 years / and
3 miles for pupils over 8 years) of a requested school, one space in each class base
will be reserved for potential catchment pupils who may move into catchment
following enrolment in accordance with agreed staffing formula. (Reference School
Transport Policy – Review and Options Appraisal 17 January 2013)
3.19 Secondary and Learning Hub
Secondary Schools Capping Projections has considered the following:
 Need to apply the efficiency factor of 80% +;
 The number of general and specialists rooms is pre-determined. At present GP
room use challenges functional capacity. This in turn determines the maximum
number of SI practical and non-practical classes;
 GP rooms should not be used in the calculation process;
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Need to take account of individual school’s curriculum model until the move to
whole town approach and the use of specialist facilities and spaces at the Hub;
Staying on rate of S4 to S5/6 pupils over the previous three must be factored in;
Maximum roll and hence functional capacity would be finally taken into account
when determining the SI annual intake;
determined by multiplying the SI intake by the total year groups; and
Reserved places for Catholic Pupils wishing to attend St Joseph’s College has also
been agreed through an Education Committee paper in 2004.
3.20 The intention is to limit the number of pupils entering S1 and this is guided by the
following factors:
 the number of P7 children known to be attending the associated primary school;
 those who are ordinarily resident in the catchment secondary by address to a
secondary school;
 the functional design capacity of the secondary school + Hub to accommodate
pupils.
3.21 Children would, under normal circumstances, transfer to their catchment secondary
schools, although their parents/carers may choose another school under the Parents’
Charter Legislation and this proposal in no way restricts this parental choice to make a
placing request as long as spaces are available within the school.
3.22
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Restrictions
Agree to limits to the P1 and S1 intake in named primary and secondary schools in
session 2016-17;
Agree that S2 and S3 intakes in named secondary schools in session 2016-17
should be set at levels previously agreed by committees and/or reviewed on an
annual basis;
Agree to limit intakes to named primary schools for the 2016/2017 school session;
Agree to reserve places in secondary schools for pupils who become resident in
the catchment of those schools during the school year; and
This decision is informed by the working capacity of a school which takes into
account the availability of both non-practical and specialist practical teaching areas
within the building for secondary and the facilities of the Hub.
3.23 These numbers will be reviewed on an annual basis and this mechanism will allow
the Education Authority to fulfil, as far as is practically possible, its commitment to
providing local schooling for local children.
3.24 The guidance document Determining Primary School Capacity was published by
the Scottish Government (October 2014). It is recommended that Local Authorities, if they
choose to do so, implement this guidance from January 2015 for the start of the new
school session in August 2015 where possible. It was generally agreed during the
consultation period prior to the publication of the document that providing guidance on
calculating Secondary School capacities was not a priority at this time. It is however
recommended that all Scottish Local Authorities consider a consistent approach to
calculating the capacity of Secondary Schools and seek to work together to develop this by
2016.
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3.25 Staffing: Since a school’s basic staffing complement is allocated according to a very
sensitive roll related formula, this proposal in no way challenges this formula as the
capping is based on the functional design capacity of the individual school.
Risk Management
3.26 It is important to reach agreement on the appropriate number of pupils to be
admitted to a school for the session 2016/17 to ensure that the school is capable of
making all necessary arrangements within an appropriate timescale for whole town
developments around DLT. Failure to do so might incur the risk of the school not being
able to make decisions regarding the admission of pupils within the statutory requirement
and in compliance with the Council’s Current Policy for supporting children to attend their
local catchment school.
3.27 This is the first step in a wider programme of work which would then so onto review
catchments (zones for nursery) and their associated schools to support the vision for
Dumfries Learning Town and support parent choice. It would also look at wider factors
which influence movement and numbers of pupils across Dumfries.
4.
Governance Assurance
The Corporate Management Team, Education Services Senior Management Team, Head
of Finance and School Estate Management Group, Unions, Catholic Church, Senior
Managers Property and Architectural Services have been consulted on the contents of this
report and are in agreement with the information contained therein.
5.
Impact Assessment
5.1
An impact Assessment has already been carried out for Dumfries Learning Town
where 7 Positive Impacts and 6 No Impacts were found.
http://www.dumgal.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=6595
5.2
The report does propose an amendment to policy, the formal adoption of a plan
policy to cap schools therefore an impact assessment was undertaken (set up for 5 May
2015).
5.3
Equal opportunities issues are addressed within the arrangements in place for
admitting pupils to schools including those arrangements which pertain to pupils who
cannot be immediately admitted due to the school being at capacity at a given time. An
Equality Impact Assessment has been undertaken and the link will be made available to
committee members prior to the committee date.
Author(s)
NAME
DESIGNATION
CONTACT DETAILS
Claire Renton
Strategic Lead for Physical [email protected]
Learning Environments
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Approved by
NAME
DESIGNATION
Colin Grant
Director of Child, Young People and Lifelong Learning
Appendices – 3
Appendix 1 – DLT Vision
Appendix 2 – Secondary Capping Model
Appendix 3 – Primary Capping Model
Background Papers
Education Committee, 10 December 2009, Item 7, Admissions Policy and School
Capacities
http://egenda.dumgal.gov.uk/aksdumgal/images/att14323.pdf
Education Committee, 10 March 2010, Item 1, School Capacities
http://egenda.dumgal.gov.uk/aksdumgal/images/att14356.pdf
Education Committee, 28 January 2014, Item 6, Amendment to Enrolment Procedures
(Reserved Places) Report by Director, Education Services
http://egenda.dumgal.gov.uk/aksdumgal/users/public/admin/kab12.pl?cmte=EDU&meet=4
8&arc=71
Education Committee, 28 January 2014, Item 4, Property/Buildings (Schools) Asset Class
Capital Programme Monitoring 2013/14 – Report by Director, Education Services 2013/14
- Report by Director, Education Services
http://egenda.dumgal.gov.uk/aksdumgal/users/public/admin/kab12.pl?cmte=EDU&meet=4
8&arc=71
Education Committee, 28 January 2015, Item 9, Dumfries Learning Town – Project Update
– Report by Director, Education
http://egenda.dumgal.gov.uk/aksdumgal/users/public/admin/kab12.pl?cmte=EDU&meet=5
6&arc=71
Education Committee St Joseph’s College; School Capacity 2004
National Guidance
 Determining Primary School Capacity Scottish Government (October 2014)
 The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 as amended
 Schools (Consultation ) (Scotland) act 2010 in regards to rural closure
 Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 Early Learning and Childcare
Statutory Guidance – secure provision of early learning and childcare