....to be unsurprised the BBC called the London Oratory a "prestigious private school" when it isn't?

It’s only a shame that more schools aren’t like LOS with motivated parents and schools that take a real pride in their students, reputation and legacy.

No, I can just read 🙂

The "order of priority" is what is meant by "admissions criteria". And the Oratory has plenty, and would like more.

I would be very much in favour of much more standardised, clear and simple admissions criteria across all school types! It's mad how arcane they get and how different schools' criteria can interact to really skew the picture on local admissions - so if you're in between two popular Catholic schools but one admits on feeder primaries that you didn't attend, and the other on parish boundaries so you went to one of their local primaries but you live the wrong side of the parish line, you could miss that one too.

I mean, a lot of this is inaccurate. Criteria include the feeder school, siblings of former pupils as well as current pupils, plus the one they're consulting on now about the children of former students. They are praiseworthy in using a ballot to prioritise within criteria rather than distance or catchment but that's not the same as the only criteria being a cert of Catholic practice.

It definitely isn't too diverse in terms of social class when you look at the number of children eligible for free school meals. EAL also looks slightly low for inner London

Catholic secondaries near me vary quite a bit - one has feeder primaries, then dioscean catchment, then distance as a tiebreaker; another is baptised Catholics but then using evidence of practising as a tie breaker with those who worship more frequently getting priority, and within each of those frequency categories, attendance at a feeder primary is the tie break. Another is more straightforward as practising with distance as the tie break.

Almost all the Catholic primaries round here have distance as a tie break.

The CofE primary school my DD goes to in London selects by SEN, siblings, staff and distance.

The Diocese got rid of the faith criteria in her school and many other schools.

The result is that the most practised religion is Islam.

The nearest secondary school for her is CofE and is selective on various criteria including but not just religion. However she could still get in on distance.

In regards to house prices - London had lots of hidden social housing flats as well as bigger estates.

I don’t think it’s so much the wrong religion. If you’re not part of the religion, I don’t think the school would be particularly attractive. It’s more that followers of the religion are excluded because they’re not seen to be religious enough. I’m sure there’s enough Catholic families within walking distance of the school to fill it!

Remember that most are church schools that have been acting in co-operation with the state since the late 1940s. They are not state schools with permission.

The state does not own them, and would have to buy out the land and buildings at going market rate, under compulsory purchase.

I doubt that is affordable right now

State schools should not be selective based on religion. Why should children living next to the school not be allowed to attend because their parents are the wrong religion?

Of course faith is a worse selection criteria than distance, everyone should be able to go to a nearby school. They shouldn't be able to go to a school 15 miles away just because their parents are the right religion.

And now, having spent way too much time delving into the admissions criteria and student demographics of RBKC thatn anyone who doesn't live there should, I'm going to take a break!

Oratory Primary is right on the edge of its own priority catchment - I think Sutton Dwellings just makes it in. It would be interesting to know how many children attending the school are drawn from there, but the school's own figures show how few are eligible for FSM.

Anyway it's a tiny school so will be at best a blip in the Oratory's admissions, but it's certainly a more demographically exclusive school than other nearby primaries such as Marlborough (which has 35.4% FSM) or even St Joseph's (14.8%) and Christ Church (16%) - the latter two also being oversubscribed faith schools.

For the Oratory primary - it would be difficult to see how its catchment (the priority parish being a handful of streets in South Kensington) wouldn't dramatically skew its intake. And this is borne out by its FSM figures which are even lower than the Oratory's.

The area Immediately around the primary school is all housing trust. Sutton Dwellings and Samuel Lewis Trust have quite large estates. Though seeing children coming out of the school in their retro uniforms, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a private school.

The priests and teachers of poor young Catholics need to raise awareness in their communities and schools of this option available to their young people.

But would they even think about it, seeing the school takes from such a wide geographical area? They might even be keen for their parishioners to apply for local Catholic schools. And while parents may be able to fulfil the criterion of church attendance, being the siblings or children of former pupils might be a little harder!

Interesting straw man. No, I'm stating a fact. That schools that are able to use any form of selection - academic, faith, house price or a combination - practise social and economic selection by the back door.

My own view is that faith admissions distort catchments and further skew house price impacts, particularly as the most competitive faith schools also have an element of house price selection too - either because the intake open to non-faith places is much smaller (most CofE schools) or because the competition between churchgoers is fierce (many of the more popular Catholic schools). I'm also in favour of admissions that have a degree of demographic and academic "smoothing" by having specific quotas for eg children eligible for PP or FSM.

There's loads - the House of Commons library has some good stuff, and the EPI has good data though a little old - but I've seen nothing suggesting that the picture has radically changed.

By schools that select, I mean schools that are able to apply their selection criteria. Those with more applicants than places are able to engineer - and then embed - a degree of exclusivity that becomes self-perpetuating.

So are you arguing that no schools should have a selection criteria? And I’m not sure why faith is worse than say distance?

“More than one in three pupils attending Catholic schools come from an ethnic-minority background, new figures reveal.
And in London the proportion rises to seven out of 10, according to data from the Catholic Education Service (CES).

Nationally, 37 per cent of pupils at Catholic schools come from a minority background, compared with 30 per cent of pupils in all English state schools.

Pupils attending Catholic secondary schools are also more likely to be from disadvantaged families than children at other schools. More than 18 per cent of pupils at Catholic secondaries come from families who are among the lowest 20 per cent of earners in the country. Nationally, 14 per cent of pupils come from similar homes.

By schools that select, I mean schools that are able to apply their selection criteria. Those with more applicants than places are able to engineer - and then embed - a degree of exclusivity that becomes self-perpetuating.

What data do you have @JassyRadlett to show catholic schools have a more well off intake?

I don't think that anyone is arguing that, as a whole, they are.

There are, as with all groups, outliers.