The Isle of Wight Council are blaming an issue within their IT system for the mistake of incorrectly notifying parents of their child’s allocated school place for this coming school year.
A number of parents were told their child had not received their first choice school although they should have, whilst others were told they had when in fact they should have received a secondary choice placement.
Councillor Richard Priest, Executive member for children’s services, said:
“On 16 April 2014 the Isle of Wight Council sent offers to approximately 1,300 parents of four year old children who had applied for school places in reception classes in September 2014. We have recently discovered that a setting in the IT system that helps administer the applications was incorrect and this has led to a small number of errors in the offers made.
“Eleven children across five schools have received an offer at a first (parental) preference school when they should have received a lower (parental) preference offer. A corresponding number were given a lower (parental) preference than they should have done.
“When we discovered this problem we acted immediately and, working with schools, have ensured that there is a positive outcome for all the pupils affected. No first preference offers will be taken away and the 11 children who received a lower preference offer than they should have done will be offered the correct highest possible preference school. We are contacting those affected to explain the position and to offer them the choice of staying with their current offer place or taking up the higher preference school place.
“As a consequence of this issue the authority has had to postpone some scheduled school admission appeals hearings. We have apologised to the parents concerned and we appreciate that this will have caused inconvenience. As a result of our actions to resolve the system problem, some of the appeals may not be needed.
“We are now confident that the system is operating correctly and that all further offers made will be allocated correctly.”
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