Consultation

The Houlton School Admissions Arrangements Consultation took place between 26 November 2025 and 21 January 2026

Overview

On Wednesday 26 November 2025, the Transforming Lives Educational Trust (TLET) commenced a consultation to consult on the admissions arrangements for Houlton School.

This included consulting on changing the admissions arrangements for Houlton School from the 2027/2028 academic year onwards.

The proposed changes to the oversubscription criteria from 2027/2028 onwards are:

To ensure that Houlton School is meeting the needs of the community, it currently has two defined Priority Areas these are:

  • Priority Area 1: The Houlton development
  • Priority Area 2: An area including Clifton upon Dunsmore, Dunsmore and Newton.

With people moving into the new housing on the Houlton development all the time, it has reached a point where TLET is consulting on removing Priority Area 2 from the oversubscription criteria. All other elements of the oversubscription criteria will remain the same.

The consultation ran from Wednesday 26 November 2025 to Wednesday 21 January 2026. This is eight weeks in total – six weeks of consultation, plus two weeks for the Christmas break. 

Process

To support the effective delivery of the consultation, and to ensure the community were able to engage in this process, we ensured that:

  • A dedicated website page was created on the Houlton School and Transforming Lives Educational Trust websites. This included a link to an online survey where people could opt to share their views and ask questions.
  • A letter launching the consultation was sent to all stakeholders.
  • Staff were informed of the consultation during staff briefings and invited to share their views.
  • Information about the consultation was included in the school’s half termly newsletter.
  • Information about the consultation was included in posters that were displayed in the school’s reception and the local community noticeboard.
  • A reminder was sent out to stakeholders encouraging people to share their views.

Executive Summary

  • In total, 21 separate responses were received during the consultation period.
  • The largest number of responses came from people who have children at the school (90.5%) with 9.5% of responses coming from TLET staff. 
  • With a school population of 710 students, the response rate is on the lower side.
  • The views of respondents appear to vary greatly depending on where they live. For example, those who live on the Houlton development tend to be supportive of the proposals, while residents of villages like Clifton upon Dunsmore are more likely to oppose the changes.
  • Concerns about changes to sibling preferences for those in the current ‘priority 2 area’ were also raised.
HS001 Admissions Policy 2027 28 V1.0 For Consultation