School catchments should offer a genuine choice, urge Brighton and Hove parents

The petition was presented at a full meeting of the council.

A mother from Brighton has presented a petition to Councillors urging them to offer a genuine choice of secondary school to all children in the area.

Sam Fearn, from Coldean, handed in the petition of 1,360 signatures to Brighton and Hove City Council at Hove Town Hall yesterday (Thursday 26 January).

The council is reviewing the current catchments – some of which may contain only one school while others will have two and possibly three.

At a meeting of the full council she spoke about the aims of the petition which was headed “One choice is no choice”.

The petition said: “We believe that every child in Brighton and Hove should be treated fairly.

“The University of Brighton intends to provide a secondary school for children in the centre and the east of the city which will open in 2018. For the first year, any child in the city can apply.

“However, the working party has recommended that the new school should be located in the central catchment from 2019.”

This would benefit children and parents who already had a choice of Dorothy Stringer or Varndean School, the petition said.

It also said that children and their parents would have just one choice in the catchments for BACA (Moulsecoomb and Bevendean including the Coombe Road area), Longhill (Whitehawk, Woodingdean, Ovingdean, Rottingdean and part of Saltdean), PACA (Portslade and Mile Oak) and Patcham (Patcham, Hollingbury and Westdene).

The petition said: “This is unfair and contradicts the School Admissions Code (2014) which states that admission policies should be ‘fair, clear and objective’.

“We, the undersigned, ask Brighton and Hove City Council to end this unfairness and inequity and ask that children from all over the city are given at least two secondary schools in their catchment area so that all children have a choice.”

In a speech to councillors Sam Fearn said: “We are objecting to the unfairness of the current catchments and the working party’s proposal to place the new University of Brighton secondary school into the central catchment from 2019.

“If Brighton and Hove City Council take forward these proposals, they will not be honouring their responsibility to treat all children in the city equally.

“This seems obvious for at least three reasons. Firstly and fundamentally, how can it be fair for some children to have a choice of three schools while others have no choice at all?

“How does refusing choice to one third of the city’s children deliver the principles of equality that this council claims to support.

“Many people believe that more effort should be made for less advantaged areas of the city to address the imbalance in opportunities facing the city’s children.

“We are only seeking the same treatment for all children.

“Either all of our children have a choice or none do. Anything else is an injustice.”