Labour reviewing school admission criteria

In the early days.
Well back in the 70s. There was a surge in births and not enough school places. Religious schools agreed to allow kids in not of the faith and the Govn agreed to pay them for that
Some schools became comp and mixed sex ( most were single sex) to accommodate the surging need

Whilst people not of the faith were offered places after all those of the faith got first dibs. Quite right imo. Those of the faith were/ are paying towards the school through donations and collections. Money that those of the faith don’t pay.

If. The Government closed all faith schools we’d have a higher educational tax burden. If people of the faith are happy to subsidise schools of their faith That’s their choice and currently their right.

Reminds me of a policeman I worked with. He had a police house on a grotty estate. Eventually they saved a deposit and moved to a new house in a lovely area. He said his big regret was the school for his son. In the rough area he was one of the good/smart kids from a supportive family and doing well. Changed to the great school in lovely area and was just one of many and did much worse. Seemed odd to me at the time but now I'm older I can look back and understand what he meant.

I know one child in my DDs year at primary, it was well known he had coaching five nights a week in years 4, 5 and six till the exam. He got into the grammar, was bottom at everything and got worse GCSEs than other kids from their year who went to the comp. Poor kid, I can't imagine what it did to his self-confidence.

I think you've probably done well, you're clearly a good supportive mum.

10% I believe. Plus of course they own the buildings and grounds.

That % may vary of course. Depending on the faith and level of control they have on admission criteria.

I also wonder whether the middle class school gaming effect is at all prevalent in Wales or Scotland or those parts of England where the provision’s been adopted.

In Scotland children all go to their local catchment school. You can request another school but will only be offered a space if there are any after all catchment children are accounted for (plus sometimes places may be reserved for those moving into catchment).

I talk about grammar schools as someone who went to one, and shouldn’t have. I couldn’t keep up, I wasn’t clever enough.

I was borderline on the 11+ as I am spectacularly shit at maths. Always have been. I suspect I did well on the English and verbal reasoning and that how I scraped a boarder line mark.

But my mum was dying of cancer. Everyone said it was to do with stress - it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t, I just wasn’t clever enough, I knew, even at that age I would struggle. And struggle I did. I was soon written off at the grammar, and left school as soon as I could at 16. My peers did amazing and have gone on to be successful. Me, not so much. I would have done far, far better at one of the comps where I wouldn’t have been bullied by other kids and staff for not being good enough and ist left behind when I couldn’t keep up (it was the early 90s, I would hope things would be different now).

I still think grammars are great for kids who can do it - my two eldest went to grammars, my 11 year old is just about to start, my 5 year old will do the 11+ when the time comes IF she’s as academic as her siblings. Only time will tell that, she’s only just about to go into year 1.

I certainly won’t be crying about unfairness and being written off if she’s not, she will go to a normal secondary and good luck to all those who can get in and keep up at a grammar.

plus over 31,000 children are placed in private school by their EHCP and their fees, including VAT are paid by local councils.

Schools also offset against VAT on expenditure, including any capital projects over the last five years. Plus you have not accounted for the additional cost of educating those who have moved into the state sector.

Not according to many mumsnet posters who think they are terrible.

Some kids are really bright, can pass the 11+ and keep up at grammar school, some kids can’t, that’s just the reality of life. There will always be people who are better at something than you.

But they insist it writes kids off at 11. Or that the 11+ is for those children whose parents can afford tutoring. I mean; you do need to be taught HOW to do the 11+. You can put the brightest kid in front of a non verbal reasoning paper and they would struggle if they had never seen one before.

It doesn’t have to cost. There are YouTube videos, you can print free practice papers, the schools usually have practice material on their own websites. If you engage with your child’s school and ask for help, there is usually an engaged teacher or two who wants to help them.

11+ relies on parents being engaged with it. Kids don’t sign themselves up for it.

Labour won’t do that though. They hate grammar schools as much as private schools.

Stopping mixed ability teaching would help enormously too.

Bringing back Grammar schools would fix the problem.

Not many parents prepaid, only some. And yes, some were forced to remove kids. But even if we revise this number 10% down (which is way too generous), it's still £1.17bn of new money.
Can someone please show me where it's gone?

I’ve just read the article that Andrew19997 linked to. Yep, it sounds a total nightmare - and exactly the sort of thing that Brighton council would do. I’m really glad that friends who live in Brighton have their children already in senior school.

More broadly though, this sort of change needs to be carried forward on public opinion. Brighton is a very Labour city but upsetting the residents is a bad move. Once there is a public perception that Labour are going to bugger up people’s lives, that is hard to shift.

Labour hopes if enough middle class children are thrown into failing schools, they will eventually turn the corner, despite there being no good evidence to support this. In fact, in previous social experiments of this nature, the opposite was true. Middle class kids (often white) were over represented on the schools talented and gifted programmes, whilst socioeconomically poorer children were frequently sidelined. Sad but true. Although a school might get better results, this outcome didn’t actually advantage poorer children. Who often had received less coaching and access to extra curriculars, thus not finding themselves proportionally represented in the top 30%. Try this podcast, it’s fascinating: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html

The VAT raised this year won’t be close to that. Many parents (especially at the more expensive schools) pre-paid for at least the 24/25 academic year. Some of the most expensive schools had to close their schemes because they couldn’t cope with the demand. This is why the VAT was always a stupid idea; it didn’t affect the wealthiest families. They have enough money to be able to avoid it. It’s the middle and lower income families who have been hardest hit.

also what they have raised from private school vat,

Ok, assuming 580k students in PS in 2024/25, average 18k pa. Two terms at 20% - is this £1.3bn? Don't think too many parents escaped given such short notice. The situation will certainly change in Sep, but this money have been collected already.

Where's new investment in education??? Free toast for everyone?

They don’t have any money to improve things. Wonder if anyone knows how many of the promised school teachers have been recruited, also what they have raised from private school vat, suspect it will have been a fools errand - designed to anger people rather than raise enough for state schools to improve.

I might be wrong, but IIRC Wales has the lowest attainment rates?

On the basis repeatedly mentioned above - please show me at least one policy aimed at improving education? where are the money collected from two terms of VAT on private schools? where are new 6500 teachers? where is new SEN investment?

A single action to improve what's there, not shifting children around?

They will most certainly narrow the gap by bringing successful schools in middle class areas down. What else?

Re-posted with the quoted comment…

Thank you. I wasn’t aware of that. It’s a very good point. It confirms that the speculation is likely over-blown.

Even so, it is odd that education should be given as an example by the government of what might (supposedly) be improved by LAs under the provision, even if it’s limited to publicising admission criteria - which seems pretty pointless to me: I don’t believe any parents accidentally send their child to a worse school when there’s a better one available.

I also wonder whether the middle class school gaming effect is at all prevalent in Wales or Scotland or those parts of England where the provision’s been adopted.

.

I haven’t seen anything from this government that’s going to improve the poorer performing schools. They’ve cut funding for STEM, Latin, music, foreign language, computing etc initiatives. They’ve awarded unfunded pay rises which means that school budgets are even more stretched. I’m not convinced that a “free” breakfast muffin is going to improve standards in schools. They’ve cut teacher recruitment targets. The promised investment from any money raised from VAT on school fees has now been allocated to building affordable housing. The VAT policy has shifted pupils from the private into the state sector.

The Equality Act has included the socio-economic clause in Wales since 2021. And Scotland since 2018. And various English councils have voluntarily adopted it. You should be able to tell which councils they are because of the change in their school admissions criteria?

Sorry, I don’t follow.

But it wouldn’t be out of character for this government to arrange the law to put pressure on councils to alter their admissions policy. The Act would give them cover.

How has it worked in Wales?