A total of 4518 Newham residents applied for places in the borough’s schools, starting this September, by the national closing date of 31 October 2018, with over 93 per cent offered a placed at one of their preferred schools according to London-wide admission data.
Figures from the Pan London Admissions Board on National School Offer Day show that despite a rapidly changing population and demographic profile, Newham has successfully worked with its family of schools to offer the best placements to most families.
There has been a slight drop in the numbers offered their first preference – but Newham still remains above the London average for offering one of the first three preferences.
Councillor Julianne Marriott, Cabinet member for Education said: “More children than ever have applied for a secondary school place in Newham this year. By working closely with our local schools we have been able to provide an extra 200 places for our children in local schools.
“We have a great family of schools in Newham and I am really pleased that for the vast majority of our families we have been able to offer a place at one of their top preference schools.
“We are anticipating the demand for secondary schools to continue to grow. That’s why Newham’s “Places for All” strategy, passed at January’s Cabinet meeting, allocated £24m to increase the number of secondary places through expansions of existing schools.”
Only 298 pupils could not be offered place at any of their preferred schools and these were allocated alternative places at the closest school to their home with places remaining.
Included in the figures are 222 Newham children who were places at schools outside of Newham, and 297 pupils who live outside of the borough, who were offered a placed in a Newham secondary school as part of Pan London co-ordination.
Of those offered places from outside Newham 61 had a sibling at the school who is reasonably expected to still be on roll in September 2019.
The capital’s dense population means there is always movement across local authority boundaries. This is reflected in the statistics. While some boroughs might not be offering as many first preferences to their residents as other authorities, they may well be meeting a high proportion of first preferences for pupils from neighbouring boroughs.