AQW 22094/11-15

Mr Seán Rogers
Social Democratic and Labour Party
South Down

Tabled Date: 23/04/2013
Answered On Date: 01/05/2013
Priority Written: Yes

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education to list the pre-schools that are oversubscribed for the 2013/14 academic year; and by how many places each pre-school is oversubscribed.

Answer:

I will arrange for a list of those pre-school settings which had filled all of their allocation of funded pre-school places by the end of Stage 1 of the 2013/14 pre-school admissions process, to be placed in the Assembly library.

It is not possible to determine a specific number of places by which each setting was oversubscribed as the pre-school admissions process is a preference based system with parents stating, in some cases, 6 or more preferences on their application form. If a setting receives fewer applications than it has places available all those who apply will be facilitated. Where a setting receives more applications than it has places, these will be considered against the setting’s published admissions criteria with those applications which cannot be facilitated being passed onto the next setting listed as a preference. A child may therefore be considered by a number of settings before being placed or may remain unplaced at the end of their list of preferences.

By the end of Stage 1 of the 2013/14 pre-school admissions process over 95% of children had been offered a place in a setting listed as a preference on their application form.