Back on 29th of April of this year, @toadmeister intimated that he planned to set up a 2 form of entry primary school.  Nothing has been said since then, to our knowledge – until the publication of the Hammersmith and Fulham Council Cabinet Agenda for 9th January.

Cabinet Agenda 9th Jan 2012

There are a lot of questions to be answered, some of which are raised in the discussion on Local Schools Network by Ian Taylor.  Will WLFS set up a preferential admissions process for the associated primary school? The ‘all age school’ and ‘as a part of that provision’ implies it will be one through-system for children who enter the primary.

And what will the admissions process be?  Will the policy be be straight line distance  or will they go the route of an admissions policy similar to the one for the secondary school?   There are already questions raised as to how the admissions process has been followed to date so it is hard to know what is intended to happen relative to what has happened or what may happen.  This may be an issue of conflicting information – and to Toby Young’s credit he seems to be wanting to redress any lack of clarity on that point.

To date, it sounds like WLFS has made an overture to the Council for a free primary.  Technically, they need to also consult fully if they want to expand the ages served by the school.

Now, if there is already provision for a primary school in the funding agreement for West London Free School, this consultation requirement is moot.  The only requirement, according to the above link, is that the Local Authority weigh in on the matter.  A public consultation may be moot anyway, given recent public perception of the history of consultations in the Borough.  The questions could be answered if WLFS or the DfE would publish the funding agreement as previously agreed (see a trend here?) – but they haven’t.

UPDATE:  Toby Young has said, in the thread linked above, that there will be full consultation and the process will be started by applying to the DfE to open a Free Primary for 2013 – so this will be a new application and a new process, rather than any expansion of exsiting provision.