HERE IS HOW WE SUGGEST YOU RESPOND TO THIS CONSULTATION: Oxfordshire County Council is proposing to stop providing free transport to your catchment school, if it is not your nearest school. Under new proposals, from September 2015 your children will not receive free transport to their catchment school if there is another school nearer to your home. This will affect communities, especially in rural areas, put existing primary partnerships under strain and cause confusion for parents around admissions, which will continue to prioritise people for their catchment school. It will make ‘choosing’ to send your child to your catchment school a choice based on your ability to pay (in the region £600), the availability of a parent to drive to school. This also raises issues of child safety, around already congested schools, for those who currently walk. The proposals also look to remove cheaper bus fares to catchment schools for post-16 students AND increase those fares at a time when staying in education or training becomes compulsory. There is a public consultation until running until 20th December which gives you the chance to tell the council that you object to these proposals. What can I do? Visit the council’s consultation portal by following the link below. Scroll down to ‘Have your say’ where you can fill in the online questionnaire. Questions 1-4 relate to the ‘nearest school’ policy. Here are our suggested responses: Question 1: We recommend you choose ‘none’. This is because current school ‘catchment areas’ will no longer qualify students for free school transport. Option A2 looks more generous, but there is no detail to suggest which villages would benefit and our understanding it would only apply to a very small number of long villages that would be split between schools. Question 2: The alternative suggestion we recommend is that of ‘catchment transport areas’. What this means is that the council would create a zone around each school which matches the current catchment area. They would commit to provide free transport within this area. This protects them from Academies and Free Schools setting their own, wider, catchment areas. Question 3: We recommend you choose ‘neither’. This is because the proposals will not save anywhere near the money the council claim as they assume that not a single parent will take up a free bus to their nearest school. These proposals will also massively disrupt access to catchment schools. It is therefore irrelevant when they are phased in as they should not be phased in at all. Option B1 would result in children currently in Year 7 losing access to free transport when they enter Year 11. This could have disastrous consequences for the education of children whose parents cannot afford the £600 per year ‘bus tax’. Question 4: The alternative suggestion we recommend is that of ‘catchment transport areas’ as above. This could be phased in as soon as possible and would not affect the current arrangement for any child who currently receives free transport to their catchment school, or any of their younger siblings. Question 5: We recommend you choose ‘none’. This section of the proposed policy affects anyone, of any age, who might one day choose to stay on at school post-16. ‘Concessionary fares’ are simply charges made to people who do not qualify for free transport to use a spare seat on an existing school bus. These proposals end the current arrangement where post-16 pupils who attend their catchment school pay less for their school transport (currently £263 per year for catchment rather than £492 for non-catchment school or college). Under the rules the council are suggesting, only students who live closer than 3 miles to their school will pay the lower fare. This unfairly penalises those, especially from rural areas who live further than 3 miles from school. From 2015 it is compulsory for all young people to stay in education or training until they turn 18. Despite this change in the law the council are proposing to increase fares for this group. Under options C1, C2 and C3 these fares would increase. The other problem with post-16 transport to your catchment school is that the council plan to phase out some of these buses altogether. So if you live more than 3 miles from your catchment school it is unlikely that there will be a bus for you to go on anyway. Question 6: We suggest that students attending their catchment school should qualify for a reduced fare, as under the current policy. We also suggest that at a time when post-16 education or training is compulsory under law, that fares for this group should be frozen. This will prevent people on lower incomes being unfairly penalised for the change in the law. Question 7: Agree. This relates to an initiative the council no longer runs. Question 8: These proposals will have an impact on students over the age of 16 who will be charged more for travel to their catchment schools, even if there isnt another school nearer their home. They will also disproportionately impact on children and families from rural areas who will be charged more for post-16 travel, no longer be able to travel for free to their catchment schools and may be faced with hazardous walking routes to schools their primary partnerships do not prepare them for and the councils admissions criteria do not prioritise them for. The Council have arranged a series of public meetings where Council Leader Ian Hudspeth will take questions on the proposals. We would encourage anyone concerned by these planned changes to school transport to attend their nearest meeting. All meetings are from 7pm-8.30pm. Friday 22nd November Bartholomew School, Eynsham Friday 29th November Marlborough School, Woodstock Monday 2nd November Icknield Community College, Watlington Wednesday 4th November Wheatley Park School, Holton, Oxford Monday 9th December Burford School, Burford Tuesday 10th December Larkmead School, Abingdon Thursday 12th December The Warriner School, Bloxham This will be sent out to all affected schools today. PLEASE SHARE.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:14:56 +0000