Romesh Ranganathan - School Places & Entitlement

But ultimately that's the point. The schools changed sibling priority and you know your 10 year old needs taking to school but suddenly it's ok for the 11 year old to take a train plus another train plus a 20 minute walk. Which is what ours had to do. That is why once everyone else was in a school we had to move house because that was out of order. And the bleeding secondary would not allow them mobile phones!
I am so glad those days are behind us (ish) , the 20 year old has left school now and the 18 year old can manage now on his own 😂as long as he gets the results he needs

Surely secondary school kids get themselves to school. They’re not babies.

He’s a loathsome man anyway

It's very unusual to not get 1 of your 4 preferences at secondary. He must have chosen very oversubscribed schools and or live in a black spot

I just will never understand why siblings are not a priority. I remember when our primary school changed the rules

I definitely get the primary school
thing because they can't travel independently until the higher years.

He was presumably offered none of his preferences because he did not meet the criteria for them. Other children did. You don’t rise up the list because you have selected only sought after over subscribed schools as your options,

Crawley and Horsham don't have sibling priority. The reason is because people were getting first kid into a school and and moving out of area so they stopped it by putting siblings below catchment

Yes county boundary must be a PITA and of course there is no reason why you wouldn;t live on one! I agree btw totally re primary schools and sibs, just for reasons of practicality.

That's not always the case tho. In some places (parts of London for example) many of the schools are single sex.

A lot (all) of the grammars and catholics are single sex & then a lot of independents.

Thank you, it was difficult but we are now out the other side with mostly every body left school now and at university.
We are on a county border so that's why we ended up with different holidays.
I just will never understand why siblings are not a priority. I remember when our primary school changed the rules, it was the year after our youngest joined there, otherwise we would have been going to two primary schools as well.
Never mind Romesh, ordinary families are caught up in these scenarios too, and is very difficult. In the end up we had to move house to make the secondary schools work, not the other way round!

This.

That's not always the case tho. In some places (parts of London for example) many of the schools are single sex.

Where I come from if you got into the grammar it was single sex. If you didn't, you went to the single sex sec mod. I think that's still true actually.

Not at all. This is good for a bit of time. Sofa, dogs, rose, writing about a celeb who had a passive aggressive tantrum about something for which he is completely responsible.

Also to choose single sex is your choice,

Which is why I said by choice... many of the very good London schools are single sex.

@Catsandcheese I meant different schools
were by choice...my point is that lots of siblings go to different schools & many travel
independently. Fair enough for you it was incredibly difficult.

Also to choose single sex is your choice, not arbitrary admission rules.

Aw are you bored? Me too

I'm enjoying myself, surely if you are bored you have something better to do?

Amazing I also had 4 by choice and my husband was away for weeks on end. Your point is?

Yes the single sex schools thing is a good point - common in London I believe so then the DC have to go to different schools.

I take the point about holidays being different but still think you would need to be on a county boundary - however ofc you could be.

My DC went to infant and junior schools and are two years apart - there was one year in their entire school careers when they were all at the same school. It was fine.

Yes some schools are not walkable for some people obviously! But the school near me takes students from a pretty small area, max of 2-3 miles, which is either walkable or well served by buses.

Aw are you bored? Me too

Catchment areas change every year and aren’t set in stone before applying though. This is such an out of touch comment.
You can’t just live in or live out of a catchment. Last year the intake for my local primary extended to over a mile and this year it was 0.2 of a mile. None of this information is available at the time of applications though.

Sorry I had 4 kids at one point managing 3 schools. Not for the faint hearted when there are only 2 parents.

My mum had this but by choice & also the fact the secondaries were single sex. She also did a lot of single parenting as my dad worked abroad for months at a time.

God Almighty, you'd think the guy was demanding that some lesser child be removed from the register so that his could be admitted to the same school as his siblings. He was having a bit of a moan and it got taken up as a point of interest, with so many parents going through the same thing. It's nothing to do with his income or politics. I suppose his finances make travel options easier for the family, but still.

Fair point and I agree if the policy changed then that's on them for taking that risk... I still think it's reasonable to want all your children at the same school. Obviously, there are circumstances where people might choice different schools too.

Agreed further than a typical primary but not always far enough so that several families who are regular church goers cannot get a faith education for their children.

Of course, totally understandable when you have children at both primary and secondary.
For most of us primary is around the corner or within a 10 minute car journey.
But secondary is often further away and there is not always transport provided.
So once you have one in primary and two in one secondary 35 minutes in one direction, and another in another secondary 35 minutes in the other direction it is not unreasonable to find this difficult. especially when you add neighbouring county holidays into the equation.
Of course it was our choice to have 4 kids if we had stuck to two no problem.
Anyway I hope Romesh is successful in his appeal