The Schools Minister, Georgia Gould MP, has praised the “courage, commitment and care” of Stoke Gifford mum Christine Lote, who has been campaigning to see change to school admissions policy. This was in response to Christine’s MP Claire Hazelgrove raising her story in the House of Commons.
Due to the specifics of South Gloucestershire Council’s school admissions policy, Christine’s incurable stage four cancer diagnosis was not able to be taken into account during her daughter’s primary school allocation. As a result, her daughter Sophie now attends a school too far for Christine to walk her to, and which cannot offer the specialist bereavement support available at their more local school.
Following an unsuccessful appeal and determined that no other family should face the same challenges, Christine contacted Claire to ask her MP for support in pushing for change.
Claire has raised the family’s experience with South Gloucestershire Council and the Education Secretary personally. South Gloucestershire Council are now taking forward a consultation on making changes to their admissions policy which could see greater flexibility around cases like this in future.
In December, Claire arranged for Christine to meet and share her story with the Schools Minister – together with her and South Gloucestershire Council’s Co-Leader and Cabinet Member for Education, Ian Boulton – while the Minister was visiting a local school.
In addition to change at a local level, updating the School Admissions Code nationally could provide the example to local authorities of incorporating social and medical needs into their policies. This could help unforeseeable and inadvertent cases like this be prevented.
Following the publication of the Schools White Paper, which sets out a consultation on the School Admissions Code around disadvantage, Claire raised Christine’s case in the House of Commons in March. She asked the Minister whether this possible reform could be considered as part of this consultation, and whether information could be shared with local authorities in the meantime to help inform their policies across the country.
In response, the Minister paid tribute to Christine, thanking her for her “courage and commitment and care for others in the most impossible circumstances”. She confirmed that the consultation will look at how cases like Christine’s could be better supported by admissions policy in the future.
Claire said: “Christine Lote is inspirational, and she’s right that this added strain for her and her family around the right school placement for Sophie shouldn’t be their reality. As soon as I heard her story I wanted to do everything I could to help in any possible way.
“Having raised Christine’s case with the council, arranged for her to meet with the Schools Minister and discussed this myself with the Education Secretary, I really welcome the School Minister’s commitment in the House of Commons that the newly announced consultation on the School Admissions Code will consider how cases like Christine’s can be better supported nationally.
“It was my honour to represent Christine’s voice at home in Stoke Gifford directly in Parliament – and see this real progress on the change that Christine is so generously campaigning for others.
“I’ll keep pushing on this every step of the way.”
Christine, local mum and campaigner, said: “I’m glad that through my work with Claire, we’re able to share mine and Sophie’s story and add some real-life context and put a face to our story to help the people like us who are affected by the current process to be seen and heard.
“If what we’ve experienced can help shape the system so that other families don’t have to go through the same thing, then that would mean a great deal to us.
“I don’t think there has been a full recognition that situations like mine are what this framework can come up against, but from what the Minister said in the House of Commons, I feel comforted that she listened and understood the challenges we’re facing when we met in December.”