Fair admissions in action
The Totteridge Academy in Barnet uses a pupil premium admissions criteria above distance to ensure that they can serve their community and the children that will benefit most from this excellent secondary school. They were recently named ‘TES Secondary School of the Year’. We spoke to the Principal Chris Fairbairn about their decision to ensure that their school is socially inclusive.
“I started as Principal in 2016, the same year we joined United Learning. At the time we were very undersubscribed and outcomes for Year 11 were not where we wanted them to be. The team put in a lot of work to improve the school, including working with our community to build our reputation. Seven years on Year 11 results have improved vastly and we have doubled the overall intake of the school; Year 7-10 are all oversubscribed.
“It was around the time that we had our first full Year 7 intake that we noticed our FSM proportion was dropping in our lower years. This didn’t feel right. We met as a team and reflected on why we got into teaching. We all agreed that we wanted to help all children, but especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds who would benefit most from great teachers in great schools.
Pupils at Totteridge Academy in Barnet.
“We made the decision to implement a new over-subscription criteria. We decided to add a criteria, which is applied before distance, for pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium. Our Governors were supportive. During the consultation we did receive some concerns from parents, but we were able to work with them and adapt our original idea. We eventually settled on an oversubscription criteria of reserving 60 places for pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium who lived in the borough of Barnet.
“Since then, our FSM cohort has grown slowly but steadily. We have also noticed the positive impact this has had on our culture. It sets a clear moral purpose and joint vision so that everyone knows what we stand for. All pupils in our school make excellent progress, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds.”