Poor 'lose out in scramble for primary school places'

[BlueRocksPinkPebbles]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36054909

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3544160/Two-14-year-olds-charged-murder-dinner-lady-daughter-13-dead-home.html

Is it right to wonder why European migrants are being blamed for the school chaos? Of course, there is increased demand for popular school places but if the government ensured that all or most school are enabled and supported to become good or outstanding school there would be less of a scramble for the few excellent schools. There are enough schools but not enough excellent schools.

[ReallyTired]

I am confused by your post. What had the brutal murder of a poor dinner lady and her daughter has to with children from low income families not getting places in good schools.

The problem with allocation of school places by postcode is that it results in schools for the rich and schools for the poor. The rich kid schools have fewer children with special needs or social problems. The rich kid schools also raise significant funds through the PTA, rich parents can afford tutors and often rich people are brighter. This results in schools for rich kids getting better academic results and are perceived as better schools.

To make matters worse it has become career suicide for a talented teacher to take a job in a school in a deprived area. I feel we need to partner up rich and poor schools to share good staff so that kids in deprived areas do not get the dregs of the teaching profession. We also need to increase the pupil premium and look at some kind of pupil premium for families on working child tax credits.

Somehow we need more social mixing of children so you do not get entire classes with zero aspiration. Of course the middle class parents would fight this tooth and nail.

[ChalkHearts]

I thought the school crisis was caused by high birth rate and less people moving out of London?

I'm also sick of people using league tables or ofsted to say what is or isn't a good school.

Of course schools that have a more able intake get better results in the league tables than schools that have a less able intake.

But that tells you nothing about which is the 'better' school.

In fact I'm at a loss as to how you can ever describe a school is good or bad. Because there are so many aspects to it. A small school can't offer what a large school can - and vice a versa. Doesn't make one good and one bad. Does make them very different schools.

Equally schools may be good or bad at sport / music / art / drama / Sen. Which you may care about or not.

Most schools have good and bad teachers. And generally progress is determined by a teacher not a school. Typically over primary you'll have 7 teachers. Some who will be good and some who won't.

It is not possible for a school to be brilliant. All schools have strengths and weaknesses. It may be possible to find a school that suits your DC very well. Which is great. But doesn't mean it suits all pupils.

[ReallyTired]

School crisis is nationwide and not just London. Yes, the school crisis was caused by the birth boom as generous family friendly policies of the Labour Party made having children more affordable. I think that immigration has put pressure on schools in some places, but it is not the only factor.

In our area poor town planning has made the problem worse. In my town 4 primary schools were closed and three of the sites were sold off for housing for families who need schools! The free school policy is a farce in high population density area as there is no land to build new schools on.

There will be even worst town planning with 100% academisation.

[prh47bridge]

There will be even worst town planning with 100% academisation

I'm not sure why. The LA remains responsible for ensuring there are sufficient school places. It can commission new schools. It can build new schools itself if it wishes. The only thing it cannot do is operate new schools. It needs to find an academy trust (or a group of people willing to set up an academy trust) to run the school.

[ReallyTired]

Setting up a new school takes time. In my area the opening of a new school took far longer than expected. It's not always easy to find an academy trust to run a new school. In the past the lea could direct schools to take a bulge class so no child is left without a place. It does not matter that no headteacher wants the hassle of a bulge class.

What can the lea do if all the academies say no to taking a bulge class and they cannot get the new school open in time? Where do those extra kids go to school?