Responsibilities of the board

The board is made up of local authority officers and headteachers and provides advice and support to the local authority in the planning of school places and monitoring of the admissions process.

Since 2011, new providers of school places have been able to set up state-funded free schools, which like the growing number of schools that have converted to become academies, are also independent from local authority control.

This gives them the ability to increase or decrease the number of school places they offer. This means, whilst the local authority is responsible for ensuring there are enough school places available for local children it does not have the power over the creation of places.

Waltham Forest Pupil Place Plan 2024-30 is the borough’s planning framework and provides key partners with trends and data to inform future decision-making.

Responsibilities of SOAB representatives:

The board has four headteacher representatives, one from a trust school, one primary school and two academy secondary schools.

They:

• are expected to represent the views of their sector 
• must provide feedback to questions and disseminate information to their sector.

The head reps are now as follows: 

• Juan Hernandez - Norlington School and 6th Form (Secondary Academy) 
• Jenny Smith – Frederick Bremer School (Secondary Maintained)
• Colin Jeffery - Chase Lane Primary School (Primary Maintained)
• Deena Chetty – Downsell Primary School (Primary Maintained)
• Jackie Bowers-Broadbent - Buxton School (All-through Maintained)

How often does the forum meet?

SOAB meets at least once a term with the schedule of meetings based around key school dates, such as school census’ dates, admission booklet creation and national place offer days.

Terms of reference

School application process