Parents' Experiences of the Process of Choosing a Secondary School

3. Categorising modes of practice
3.1 Collecting data from LEAs
All LEAs in England were asked to provide their composite prospectus, copies of
admission forms, letters and further information relating to secondary school
admission at the age of 11. Of the 150 English LEAs 9 Authorities were excluded
from the sample because either they operated a different age of transfer, or they did
not provide secondary education. The resulting cohort of 141 LEAs, on which this
Stage 1 report is based, comprises 100% of those authorities in England where
children transfer to secondary school at the age of 11. It is important to note that all
the information in Part 1 relates to arrangements that were in place for admission in
September 2000. Any subsequent changes have not been included.
3.1.1 The Department has a particular interest in establishing baseline data about practice
in LEAs that are part of the Excellence in Cities (EiC) initiative. In view of this,
wherever it is appropriate, the tables throughout Part 1 compare EiC LEAs with
‘non’ EiC LEAs. Table 1 indicates how many LEAs are in each phase of the
initiative compared with the LEAs who are not participating.
Table 1: Proportion of LEAs in this study which are part of EiC initiatives
Number of
LEAs
Percentage of LEAs
Phase 1 EiC areas 24 17.0
Phase 2 EiC areas 22 15.6
Non-EiC areas 95 67.4
Total 141 100.0
3.1.2 One of the aims of Stage 1 of the research was to describe the different ways in
which LEAs operated their admission procedures, as a basis for investigating in
more detail in Stages 2 and 3 whether this might have had any implications for
parental satisfaction with the process of choosing a secondary school. The material
for each of the LEAs was analysed to categorise the different arrangements that
were made for admission. Stages 2 and 3 of the research dealt more directly with
how parents actually experienced the process. The main source of information was
the composite prospectuses provided by the authorities but this was supplemented
with interviews and other communications with LEA admission staff.
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