Labour reviewing school admission criteria

Ah.

I thought it couldn’t be Labour. Not with their spotless track record of not lying about Tory WFA cuts, the need for the Tory chancellor to declare an emergency budget (but not Labour, obvs), the Tory insistence on M25 expansion of ULEZ, the cost of the Track and Trace app, corruption over Covid contracts or in support of the totally genuine Carl Beech and his claims about Tory paedo rings.

The option to include PP children within a schools admissions category was put in place Dec 2014. We decided not to add it as we operate our own admissions.

The one that’s confected this nonsense.

It’s always ‘speculation’ until it’s not. See welfare cuts. And another ‘white paper’ where there’s already pitch rolling by Phillipson.

Convince enough people to overlook it and more chance it’ll go through.

Which half?

It’s Tory speculation. Nothing more. It’s an interesting thought experiment - concoct a rumour based on a single fact and then watch it spread and enjoy how upset people get about something that is unlikely to ever happen. It’s the entire basis half the political spectrum operates on.

Well I’m against it as this is yet more looking like they’re doing something, without investing in schools. It’s pitting parents against each other again, whilst not giving schools more resources.

There is snobbery and inverse snobbery towards all types of schools though.

The grammar DS is attending in September - a lot of his primary cohort would never put it first, even if they did get in, because of the dominant South Asian demographic and Science/Maths/Computer Science focus, that many of them do perceive of as a negative. Similarly, plenty of people are suspicious of private education, church schools, and floaty yummy mummy schools with a strong PTA and an expectation to contribute your time/money - the types of school where people care (sometimes too much) about what reading level their DCs are on actively puts a ton of people off.

So which one is worse? Snobbery or inverse snobbery. I think they are as bad as each other. And if the State were to decide to actually force poorer children into schools with an affluent demographic, rather than just widen their choices, it would likely backfire.

Labour have this thing where they believe that socially mixing people more and educating them more leads to more Labour voters. Personally, I think only if those people get the actual choice.

Yes the travel and distance is more my concern too.

For us, dd gets really travel sick even on short distance journeys so I really wouldn't want her to have to travel further than necessary and feel poorly every morning and afternoon just because she's not an fsm child.

To be fair not everyone who is against it is being snobby here (although lots are!) my reasoning is that I dont want kids to have to travel further than necessary to school. We moved house because we were in a black hole for secondary schools. Meaning that we weren't within the "furthest offered" for any school nearby. This would have meant that we'd have been offered a place in ANY under subscribed school in the borough. For our London borough that would likely be a very long way away and involve complicated travel for the kids.
Obviously we chose a school we liked and moved within 0.7 of a mile of it to be sure we get in. So if we get squeezed out of that one we're back to square 1 of having no undersubscribed school nearby and could be sent anywhere again.
I actually think our intake is reasonably mixed between kids from mega mentions and kids from normal homes. No idea on FSM numbers though.

It’s a pain as some do well. Better to flatten everything and say it’s at least the same. Just all worse.

= no aspirations 🙄

children of working class parents due their crap parents is what makes school bad ?

this thread makes little sense to me glad are worried because it will be filled with children who have parents that don’t give a hoot about their children’s education etc and in turn brings a school down. If they don’t why are you worried about them even researching schools and outcomes and applying for a decent school out of catchment.

children of working class parents due their crap parents is what makes school bad ?

this thread makes little sense to me glad are worried because it will be filled with children who have parents that don’t give a hoot about their children’s education etc and in turn brings a school down. If they don’t why are you worried about them even researching schools and outcomes and applying for a decent school out of catchment.

I have no idea about your children.

Read the thread to see what makes good or bad school.

Perfectly put.

how does our children being able to attend the same school as your children make the school “ bad “

No nice areas, no good schools.

But this is EXACTLY what Labour want to achieve - to bridge the gap. You can do it by improving schools in poor areas or making all school equally bad. They are going for later. Obviously

@twistyizzy both my dd’s work full time and have both given and received help from other working parents with regard to school and extra curricular activities such as football etc.
Maybe it’s not the done thing where you live but it certainly is where I live.

I don’t think it will be as bad as people think. We live an area which is council estates and million pound houses share the same street. The whole place is divided like that and we have what is called the “ middle class schools “ and them some less favourable schools
It ends up the exact same people who attend both settings despite all being in the same catchment. I don’t know a single person from our council estate who applied for London O and it’s next door so don’t worry too much about our wild uneducated offsprings ruining your children’s education.

But screw those who just managed to get into the catchment eh?

I don’t know how we keep swallowing these race to the bottom policies rather than…actually campaigning to find schools properly.

The disastermongers continue to over exagerate the problems this policy would cause.
If a secondary school with a PAN intake of 180 has a 1.5km radius "catchment area" currently, then designating 15% of places for Pupil Premium applicants would (if ZERO pupil premium applicants are currently admitted) merely reduce that 1.5km radius to 1.4km. The pupils who in the current structure might have got places and now don't are the ones who live approximately half way between this school and the next one over that is often less than 3km away, and don't have a significantly greater commute. If the school currently has some pupil premium intake but just significantly below average, then the effect is obviously smaller. People who live well within the catchment area boundaries will not be affected.

I know several parents who live abroad have pulled DC out of UK independent schools in favour of international independent schools abroad. Much cheaper fees + no VAT.

There are loads of cheaper private schools across the border in France or even Spain though. So I really don’t think that if this were implemented really badly that many successful people who can’t quite afford private school would stick around. I wouldn’t have.

I had FSM and received a low Income grant for the university tuition. If they make education accessible for low income families then it’s up to the parents and children. I do believe there should be a mix of FSM but it should be capped within the catchment area, not out of catchment. After several years, when the school has diluted to no longer being good, then i guess all schools will be average and it will all level out. No nice areas, no good schools. Only the elite can afford private schools