A TOP Catholic college is to change its admissions policy after hundreds of parents camped through the night in the hope of putting their children's names down for places.
Equipped with flasks and sandwiches, sleeping bags and pillows, the determined applicants began queuing at Aquinas College in Stockport a full 24 hours before enrolment began.
More than 800 people - all of them non-Catholics - were waiting in line by the time admissions staff began accepting the applications for next September's intake.
At least half of those who queued will be disappointed when students are allocated places next month.
Staff at the college said they were faced with an "impossible" situation because of the massive demand and have promised to put in a new admissions policy to make sure the clamour for places is not repeated next year.
Aquinas College consistently posts some of the best A-level results in Stockport and is one of the region's highest-performing sixth form colleges.
The college is particularly popular with parents because it does not operate a selection policy based on academic results when filling up the 800 places for new students each year.
Priority is given to Catholic applicants from the college's four "partner schools", Harrytown RC High School, St Anne's RC School and St James's RC High School in Stockport and St Thomas More School in Buxton.
Pupils who are practising Catholics or have been educated at Catholic schools are then considered, followed by brothers and sisters of Aquinas students.
Oversubscribed
It is the remaining 300-350 places that are made available to non-Catholics on a "first come, first served" basis, and in recent years these places have become increasingly oversubscribed.
Applications for next September's intake were accepted at the college from 9am on Saturday, and the first parents hoping to enrol their child began queuing at 6.30am on Friday.
Since 2002 the college has opened the sports hall for those wishing to wait overnight, and plastic chairs were provided for parents.
Dr Ambrose Smith, principal at the college for 16 years, said: "We had people queuing from 6.30am on Friday right through the night.
"We will have to go for another option next year because it is reaching extreme levels."
Governors will consider a range of options - including a ballot system and phone lines.
Ian Bate, 46, from Cheadle Hulme, queued from 7.30am on Friday and took shifts with his wife. Their son Laurie, 15, is hoping to study law and maths.
Mr Bate said the head had suggested that if anyone knew a better way of dealing with admission applications, they should let him know.
Jane Evans, 39, from Poynton, said: "It was like one big sleepover."
What do you think of the admissions procedure? Have your say.
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Unfair Admissions Policy at Aquinas College.
On Friday afternoon, as soon as school finished my son and I went to queue at Aquinas College, only to find to our horror that we were over 350th in the queue - we had arrived around 3.20 - 3.30pm. With only around 300 - 350 places, it is unlikely that my son will get a place at the college. What amazed me was the number of parents in the queue - someone told me that by 1.30pm that there were over 260 parents in the queue. In addition there were a number of students out of school uniform in the queue - considering that most schools do not finish until 3 -3.15pm, it was obvious that some of them had played truant or pulled a sickie that day. However, many more students in school uniform arrived after us - some with parents and others came on their own by taxi and by bus. Most of them were very quiet and subdued because like my son they felt very cheated by the first come first served admissions policy. These students were the honest conscientious ones who had spent a full day at school and were prepared to camp out the night to gain a place at Aquinas. Most likely, these students had decent hard working parents who trusted their children to be mature and sensible enough to queue at Aquinas on their own after school and came to support them later in the evening after work.
If Aquinas only takes in 300 students from the queue, as they did last year, students who came to queue after the end of a school day had no chance. Is it fair for parents to queue for their children? I heard that parents had started queuing at 6.30am that morning and by 9am the ticket numbers issued for the queue was already in the 60's. Aquinas College only sent out application forms by first class post the day before (Thursday 11th Nov) and for the majority of people, the post does not arrive until after 9am. Therefore is it fair to start queuing without an application form? Earlier that day at around 11am, I had rung the school to ask where queuing was and they had told me it was at the Sports Hall which would open at 4 pm that day. Here we would then be given a numbered ticket to indicate our position in the queue. However, no mention was made that queuing had begun and we were surprised that the Sports Hall was already opened when we arrived.
The following is a quote from the Aquinas College prospectus. "We are a Catholic community based on the Gospel values of freedom, justice and love." There was certainly love as so many parents queued for their children but was there justice? If Aquinas College want to keep their good reputation, then they must seriously rethink their admissions policy. Like in previous years there will be many disappointed students. The question is whether the Principal and the Governors of Aquinas College will admit that what happened this year was a complete fiasco and will they be brave enough to do something about it for the students who were beyond the 300 mark in the queue.
Note: I wish to remain anonymous as I do not want to jeopardise my son's application.
in response to the previous comment on the site, I would like it to be known that there were schools in the stockport area that had an " in service training day" and therefore these children were not in school on the day and were not playing truant as suggested in the comment.
Abut the catholic college & it's admission policy.
The policy is the responsibility of the college & should be left that way.
I am not a catholic. In fact I am not very religious at all in the true sense. However the real question is, why is a catholic education so sort after by non catholics?
The same situation exist in Australia & I can only conclude that parents believe that their children will be taught absolute values for living. In addition to this they are given a sound basic education, encouraged & assisted along their chosen path in life and above all they are taught self discipline.
Good luck to the catholic college.