Academy school criticised for excluding council estates in admissions policy
Watchdog says The Charter school at 'risk of skewing its intake against economically and socially disadvantaged pupils'.
An academy school in south London has been criticised by the admissions watchdog for setting its catchment area to exclude children from two council estates with the "risk of skewing its intake against some economically and socially disadvantaged pupils".
The Charter school in Dulwich, a mixed secondary that became an academy in 2010, has excluded a pedestrianised path leading to two areas of social housing from its calculation of the shortest safe walking distance, the watchdog said in a judgment.
The ruling from the Office of the Schools Adjudicator came in response to a complaint by a group of parents who have been campaigning against the school's admissions policy.
The Charter school was set up in 2000 as a foundation school – a type of school that is responsible for its own admissions. It became an academy and, like all academies and free schools, it acts as its own admissions authority.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, said this week he anticipated "more than half" of secondary schools in England would be academies by the end of this parliament.
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... (The Guardian - 1 February)