Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to the statutory guidance Travel to school for children of compulsory school age published in January, whether parents are entitled to an explanation of why their child has been allocated a school placement in another education authority, whether such a decision can be made on the basis of transport costs alone, whether route risk assessments are required, and what account is taken of safety and accessibility of transport routes when allocating  children to schools.

School places are not allocated on the basis of transport costs, route risk assessments or the safety and accessibility of transport routes. The statutory school admissions code sets out how school places should be allocated and exists to ensure that school places are allocated in a fair and transparent way.

Parents express a preference as to the school they would like their child to attend. Schools must publish the criteria they will use to allocate places if they are over-subscribed, so that parents have as much idea as possible of their chance of securing a place at each school they are considering applying for. A school that has places available must admit all children who apply. If a school receives more applications than it has places available, it must allocate the available places in accordance with its admissions criteria. If a parent cannot be offered a place for their child at any of the schools for which they have applied, the local authority should offer a place at an alternative school. Parents refused a place at a school for which they have applied can appeal to an independent appeal panel.

Home-to-school travel is an integral part of the school system and seeks to ensure that no child of compulsory school age is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport, but it plays no part in the allocation of school places. Local authorities are required to arrange free home-to-school travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school if they live more than the statutory walking distance from it (2 miles for children under 8 and 3 miles for children aged 8 and over), or live within the walking distance but would not be able to walk there because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so.

Where a child’s nearest school is full and unable to offer them a place, the nearest school with a place available becomes their nearest school for home-to-school travel purposes. The school to which a child is eligible for free travel may be in a different local authority area to the one in which they live.