Parents' Experiences of the Process of Choosing a Secondary School

4.7 Explaining the consequences of expressing or not expressing a preference
The following set of tables looks at the extent to which LEAs provide a clear
explanation of the importance of expressing a preference and the consequences of
not so doing. The judgements are those of the research team who examined all the
prospectuses and made judgements which were then subject to a moderation
procedure. To be categorised as giving a clear explanation did not require an LEA
to mention the Greenwich and Rotherham judgements by name or to provide
chapter and verse on the legal context. It did require a prominent statement
explaining clearly what parents must do and what would happen if the advice was
not followed.
Table 4 Legal Context: Are the consequences of expressing or not expressing a
preference made clear?
Number of LEAs Percentage of LEAs
Made clear 50 35.5
Not made clear 91 64.5
Total 141 100.0
Table 5: Legal context: Are the consequences of expressing or not expressing a
preference made clear?: Breakdown of Non EiC, EiC 1 and EiC 2 LEAs
Made
clear
Not
made
clear
Number
of Non
EiC LEAs
% of
Non
EiC
LEAs
Number
of EiC 1
% of
EiC 1
Number
of EiC 2
% of
EiC 2
35 36.8 7 29.2 8 36.4
60 63.2 17 70.8 14 63.6
Total 95 100.0 24 100.0 22 100.0
The information is particularly important for parents in the light of the Rotherham
judgement because LEAs must first consider those parents who have expressed a
preference over those parents who have not expressed any preference. As both
tables indicate this is an area where a substantial number of LEAs could put across
the message more clearly.
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