Romesh Ranganathan - School Places & Entitlement

What does he expect them to do? Bend the school admission laws to accommodate him? There’ll be loads of kids that didn’t get their first choice just because of how places are ranked in line with the published policy.

It’s set up to be a level playing field for everyone and that means that some people will end up disappointed. Middle class parents always deal with it badly and dramatically but I’m sure he’ll find a work round, whereas others may not have to means to.

This is true people don’t read them, and lot of people seem to misunderstand them and think that by putting X first they have more chance of getting Y etc

It’s a shame but not uncommon, most secondaries take children in catchment with siblings, children in catchment without siblings, then children out of catchment with siblings, but it varies from school to school.
Some people don’t realise that siblings aren’t that high a priority.
(Edit to add when I say “with siblings” I mean siblings already at the school!)

It does seem very unreasonable however to be offered none of your 4 choices! I agree with him that that’s not ok and I think he’s got a platform to complain about this where most ordinary parents in his position couldn’t.

Moved house to a posher part of Crawley, five miles down the road and is a former teacher… so should know how these things work. It’s a shame that having siblings at the same school hasn’t guaranteed a place, but presumably it’s because other children who meet more of the criteria are above his child on the list. Ordinary people and their children miss out on their preferences every year, it’s not new.

I'm torn. I think it's true that he ought to have considered catchment rules when moving house and obviously, as a wealthy person he had more options than many parents when it comes to education. OTOH, it's not that unreasonable to expect to send siblings to the same school - it's also not his fault that education is in the state it's in. The real fault lies with successive governments who haven't invested as they ought to have done in our schools, so that they are both plentiful and good!

Schools publish their allocations policy

But do people always read them? I read our local policies at the relevant times and they were very clear, and still heard people in the playground saying rubbish. I even had one teacher at the school the oldest went to telling me they would ‘see what they could do’ for my youngest.

I respect that he’s using the state system when he obviously doesn’t have to do so.

I don’t respect that he’s clearly using his influence to try and get special treatment.