AQW 25395/11-15

Mr Mervyn Storey
Democratic Unionist Party
North Antrim

Tabled Date: 06/09/2013
Answered On Date: 17/09/2013
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education to list the schools which were oversubscribed at stage 1 of the pre-school enrolment process in each of the last three years, broken down by (i) Education and Library Board; and (ii) constituency.

Answer:

Information on the location of pre-school settings is not held in the format requested and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Education and Library Boards are, however, able to provide information broken down by District Council.

I will arrange for a list of those settings which had filled all of their allocation of funded places by the end of Stage 1 of the pre-school admissions process for 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14, broken down by Education and Library Board and District Council, to be placed in the Assembly Library.

The pre-school admissions process is preference based: therefore children not offered a place by their 1st preference setting may be offered a place in another setting listed by their parents as a preference on their application.

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 preferred setting and, overall, sufficient funded places remained available to meet the needs of those who had not been placed. By the end of stage 2 of the process 99.9% of those children whose parents remained with the process received an offer of a place for their child.