Pupil Passports, fair or just plain daft?

[grumpyzebra]

Anyone who has seen or read about the Tories' new idea about more equity in state-funded primary/secondary education (see here and here for some descriptions). Is it a good idea? Will me greater equity between poor and middle class in terms of access to good quality state-funded education, or...

I have visions of even more school run traffic... and people being outraged because their child's name wasn't pulled "out of a hat" by any schools close to home, so parents are basically asked/expected to transport an unlucky child across half the city or even county. Any more thoughts, esp. from the teachers on MN?

[hercules]

I suppose it depends on what you think makes a good school. Do only good teachers teach in good schools? Very often it's more about the attitude of the kids and their background that determines the success - I know that is a very general statement.
If it is the case and schools become more "mixed" then would the good schools no longer be as good and would this simply push some parents into sending privately?
Hard to know really...

[grumpyzebra]

I've heard (only heard, this may be completely wrong) that the top predictors for scholastic achievement are 1) Parental Involvement; 2) Parental social class; 3) Mother's level of education. All things that should work well in my kids' favour, and yet DH and I are still very loathe to send our kids to any school with an Ofsted report actively citing poor attitudes on the part of some pupils...

[popsycal]

Will read this tomorrow zebra, if you 'bump' it up. Just can't face it now - LOL!!

[hercules]

Sounds about right to me Zebra. Teachers are not Gods and pupils only see each one along with 30 other kids for an hour a week so I cant see how much impact this can have if you dont have all these things in your list.
If the majority of a schools pupils have these things then the school cant go far wrong.

[carla]

Haven't seen your links, but, IMO, stupid. Did you hear Tim Yeo on Radio 5? Couldn't even answer the presenter

[grumpyzebra]

It does concern the socialist part of me a lot that poorer families may effectively be priced out of "good" schools... That's why I would like to see something fairer than mere geography for deciding admissions, but not sure if this is the right way about it, either.

[aloha]

The best schools around here are as surrounded by council estates as the worst - really. We live in quite a 'nice' road for the area and our nearest school is a dump (quite frightening Ofsted report) that I will do anything to keep ds out of - and I mean anything.

[coppertop]

I'm not sure this is the right way to go about solving the problem. What happens if children don't get 'picked' for the school nearest to them and have no way of safely getting to the school they are allocated? Not all families have cars (including us) and our local bus 'service' is truly atrocious. From next week our local route will have no buses before 9.30am. I don't know what the solution is but I don't think that this particular idea is the way forward.

[Freckle]

Seems nuts. All you read about in the papers is how the school run is ruining the rush hour for "workers" and here they are suggesting something which will result in more children having to be transported to school rather than walking.

I can understand why they are trying to stop wealthier parents from effectively buying a place at a good school simply because they can afford to pay the asking price for homes nearby, but I don't think this is the way to do it. What they need to do is put in place measures which will result in so-called "bad" or "failing" schools improving to the point where there is no difference between them and the "good" schools.

[fisil]

In my borough there is huge social stratification in schooling which would be almost entirely wiped out by sticking rigidly to catchment areas. And it was the Tory flagship borough. I think their train of thought on this one might have had only one carriage and no wheels.

[WideWebWitch]

Sounds mad to me. A certain amount of money already follows every child around - schools and nurseries are paid per head so that won't change. And I don't think parents ought to be 'given' money to choose their child's education. Tim Yeo says "[parents]would be able to put it towards the cost of private education, but only as long as the fee was no higher than the passport's value, unless the school made top-up bursaries available to all"

"Let me stress - under no circumstances will the pupil passport be usable as a part- payment for fees charged by independent schools. "Parents will be expressly prevented from taking the value of the passport and topping it up in the private sector."
It sounds to me as if that's exactly what would happen. Maybe I'm missing something though? Bottom line is that if all state schools were reasonably good this whole 50k extra to be in the catchment of a good school wouldn't exist. That's what they should be concentrating on. And you're right, whoever said they can't have it all ways: no school run AND not going to the nearest school. Grrrr.

[grumpyzebra]

I think those quotes establish how half-baked the ideas are!!

It was really striking me, though, that Nutty and I have the same problem, trying to live somewhere that's otherwise as nice as we'd like (so many beds+garden) and in the catchment for "good" school(s). Because the demand for housing in good schools area can be so high. Nutty is about to give up on the garden and just focus on schools and one more bedroom, we will probably give the so-so school a try in order to get the garden and bedrooms. I wish we didn't have to trade off like that, though.