6. Will the First Minister make a statement on the schools admission process in South Wales West? OQ56746

Local authorities are the admission authorities for the majority of schools. Admission authorities are responsible for setting admission arrangements and any oversubscription criteria, and ensuring they are implemented properly and applied fairly. In undertaking their school admissions functions, admission authorities must act in accordance with the school admissions code.

Thank you, Minister, for that response. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that COVID-19 has brought a significant number of additional challenges on secondary schools, and secondary schools and their staff and pupils have really risen to the challenge. But oversubscription has been an ongoing problem since before the pandemic, and at a time when schools and pupils are under significant pressure this is an unwelcome additional pressure. So, this year many schools in Swansea are having to deal with more applications than they can handle, forcing parents and pupils often to settle for a second or third choice school. So, within Swansea, for example, 10 out of the 14 secondary schools had more applications than places. Olchfa school had 439 applications for enrolment in September, with only 289 places available. Meanwhile, two thirds of schools have had to admit more pupils than their original admission numbers. So, can I ask what steps have the Welsh Government taken to ensure more parents and pupils in Swansea and across Wales get their first-choice school place?    

Well, it is for the local authority to ensure they’ve got sufficiency of places, and a range of schools—both Welsh and English-medium, faith and non-faith schools—are available in most areas. Of course, you’re always going to have some schools that are more popular than others, so there will be surplus places in some and not in others. I’m not aware of any local authority in Wales that does not have sufficient places at the current time.