West Lothian nursery admissions policy set or change

Oct 29 2009 by Marjorie Kerr, West Lothian Courier

CHANGES are being made to West Lothian’s nursery admissions process it has been revealed this week.

The council’s education executive recently approved a range of measures designed to provide a better system for allocating pre-school places.

Extensive consultation was carried out with groups including parents, grandparents and other carers, education staff, councillors and trade unions, with a number of recommendations coming forward to transform the process by summer 2011.

Key changes to the admission policy include: the School Placement Panel taking over responsibility for admissions; one annual allocation of places instead of the current two; developing catchment arrangements for council pre-school places; and reviewing the admission guidance to establish priorities for the placing of pupils where there are more applicants than places.

Andrew Miller, executive councillor for education, said that he is sure the new system will be fairer to all.

He continued: “Our key aim of this process has been to deliver a fair and transparent nursery placement process, which will better meet the needs of the whole community.

“The new system will go a long way towards ensuring that local children get into local nurseries wherever possible.

“I’m delighted that we are bringing nursery placement further into line with primary and secondary admission criteria, as we fully believe in a delivering a seamless, quality education for all West Lothian children from three up to 18.”