A BOURNEMOUTH school will offer full-time places from September after a row over its provision.

Schools adjudicator Carol Parsons has ruled that St Mark’s Primary School in Talbot Rise must give children permanent places after mum Andrea Jarman said the existing plans would make life “impossible” for many.

The voluntary-aided school currently only allows pupils to enrol part-time in the first term, switching between mornings and afternoons of teaching.

And it is now believed that the decision may affect more than 10 Bournemouth primary schools who offer similar provision.

Mrs Jarman, a law lecturer at Bournemouth University, had hoped to send daughter Eibhlís to the school this September.

She said: “I’m pleased that this is the result.

“I have been left a bit bruised by the process, and I still am not sure where Eibhlís will go to school. St Mark’s took this personally, which was not how it was intended, and I don’t want that to have an effect on Eibhlís if she were to go there.”

The American-born mum had considered legal action against the Department for Education, causing education secretary Michael Gove to intervene and tell the school it must offer Eibhlís a place.

The adjudicator wrote a report, concluding: “It is not permissible in my view for a school to deny a child a term of full-time education. “The school has a duty to provide a full-time place from September and it cannot refuse to do so, nor can it require all children to attend from the January of the reception year as parents may request deferred entry to school or part-time provision until the child reaches compulsory school age. I have concluded this objection should be upheld.”

The report also stated that the school must provide places in the reception year from the beginning of the academic year in which a child will reach five, adding: “Once a place has been offered, it is then for the parent to decide whether to request part-time attendance until the child reaches com-pulsory school age or to defer entry until that point.

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS SCRAPPED

Mr Gove scrapped the automatic right for four-year-olds to be given a full-time place in school this year.

His 2012 school admissions code says authorities must offer places for four-year-olds, but has deleted a reference to full-time included in the foreword to the 2010 code written by the then education secretary, Ed Balls.