A very interesting Freedom of Information Act response on the Hammersmith and Fulham website provided information on the applicants who have been accepted into West London Free School’s first cohort.  When one has a look at the admissions criteria, it is hard to see how the entry cohort was created after hearing so much about how oversubscribed the school was!

397691-Pupil REDACTED Postcodes

397691-WLFS Pupil Origins

Based upon the total numbers of pupils listed, West London Free School would appear to have empty spaces (at least as of the date this information was collated).   The ‘churn’ of pupils could have created this, depending on the moment in time the data was recorded.

However, what is more interesting is where the pupils come from.  The Admissions Criteria for the school are as follows:

• 10% musical aptitude
• 45% straight line distance
• 30% lottery within a 3-mile radius
• 15 lottery within a 3-5-mile radius

Despite that, there seem to be a good number of pupils from outisde that radius.  In fact, even if all of the pupils from the musical aptitude category are from outside the closer radii, that still seems to leave children who are from outside the radius. This could only happen if the school was not full at the closer distances.  The Council handles the admissions – so we’re going to ask them.

View WLFS Postcode Map in a full screen map

Even MORE intersting is this map of the pupil postcodes overlaid upon an economic deprivation map from 2010 (courtesy @boriswatch):

2011 WLFS Pupil Map on 2010 Deprivation Map

We have also received the redacted postcodes of pupils who were NOT admitted and will be looking at this closely as well.