Admission policy is fair - principal

OLDHAM Academy North principal Colette Burgess has confirmed that accusations of pupil selection made in an official report do not affect her school.

Claims in the Academies Commission report don’t apply to her academy, she says, because it has maintained the former local authority state school admissions policy, which outlaws selection.

“We have not changed the admissions policy at all,” she said. “So the findings of this report do not affect us.”

The report detailed concerns that the rise in academies could fuel, rather than reduce, social segregation. Academies control their own admissions policies and some, the report suggested, might be covertly selecting pupils by using extra information demanded on admission forms or at social gatherings, to deny some children admission.

More than half of secondary schools in England are now academies, with the numbers expected to rise further.