Labour reviewing school admission criteria

The comparison with Brighton and Hove requires some further explaining:

There are two 'blocks' of secondaries right next door to eachother, so two relatively well off areas where parents get to choose from two schools. Elsewhere, notably on one of the poorest estates, there's no school so those kids have to travel for miles. In other words, as it stands, arguing that only the poor kids should have to take a couple buses is a bit meh.

There's also the issue that these two blocks of schools in the two different affluent areas have significantly less SEND and FSM pupils and this is entrenching the class divide. Interestingly, this class divide became more glaringly apparent with the gentrification of the area following the mass exodus from London (COVID, burgeoning house prices, WFH phenomenon). This drastically unbalanced the city's community and identity. Locals were priced out of areas. Schools were taken over. What there is now isn't a reflection of the city's previous rich culture.

So yes, I'm supportive of any steps taken to preserve the identity of any area from an influx of migrants.

It’s not judgemental, it’s borne out by the statistics of children attending selective (whether by faith or by ability) educational settings.

Yep but at least you can report they’re now the same.

What else do Labour have but damaging stuff like this

in other words you are saying that because poor parents don’t prioritise education, it is only fair that six years old boys and girls should teach their children to?

But it isn’t the schools themselves is it? It is the children in them

Absolutely this. Any school is defined by its catchment area, by parents.

Labour want to bring the gap down between poorer and richer areas. Improving poor schools is difficult so let's just mix it all and everyone's getting equally bad education but they can report they narrowed the gap.

Where are 6500 new teachers?? where is new SEND funding? show me a single policy being implemented which actually adds something to education not takes away from some group of kids?

You had a glass of wine and glass of water, let's mix it and have two glasses of equal crap.

Is there a middle class principle that children from lower socioeconomic-economic backgrounds should have access to a better education than their own child though?

That’s what this is suggesting.

I haven't read the proposal.

Nobody has because there isn’t one. It’s Tory fantasy based on an amendment to the Equality Act.

What a horribly judgemental post. I know a doctor, top surgeon with international reputation, who grew up on a sink estate, father drank himself to death to h while his kids were still small. Grammar school then university changed their life. You can't judge whole communities and cultures like that for good or bad

That’s the kind of allocation this would work against.

You may be right, hopefully so. But you’ve also got a majority party with a £50bn hole and no borrowing ability. They likely can’t do two could benefit thing, and have tried welfare cuts which were rebelled against, if they want to look ‘Labour’ what kind of things will they go for?

Rayner will want to push stuff. This kind of thing isn’t costly it’s just damaging to education.

And I bet the parents of those boys are all from cultures and families that value education. There will almost certainly be a higher proportion of immigrant families, no matter their economic status. It’s not going to be Jaxon from a sink estate 7 miles away, is it?

Agree. You can’t fix shitty parenting and fucked up families - which are why so many children don’t do well at school- by bussing kids all over the shop.

Schools are not the social care provider of last resort. There are loads of opportunities for families in this country. If people don’t want to avail themselves of them, then there’s only so much the Government can do, and accepting those limitations and expecting people to take responsibility for their child’s outcomes is not abandoning children!

It just doesn’t matter what’s established fact or otherwise about this subject.

The left-wing middle class would tell Starmer to fuck off if the idea was even whispered at Labour Party Conference. It’s a dud: the whole point of comprehensive schools for the leftist middle class is that they can use their money to get their children into a good school by buying in an expensive catchment, while boasting about their abhorrence of fee paying schools.

There is no way the middle class left will ever accept this. Their principles go out the window when their children’s chances of advantage in education are threatened. And Starmer is not going to upset these people. Largely because he’s one of them.

I haven't read the proposal. If this is what is planned I agree with it. My ds actually go to faith grammar in a posh area and the school has children come from all over by merit as we have all faiths as well. It's actually lovely to see boys travel ages for better facilities and opportunities. I feel bad for their long journey but glad they get to go to a much better school.

I live somewhere where the school is terrible and the house prices are low so I'm wondering if this may be better for us.

I think we should be encouraging kids to walk to school where possible, so it should be those living closest.

Because this theory works so well in other areas of society right 😬 that's why large council estates are no longer built and instead social housing is mixed into new estates in smaller numbers. Because it "dilutes" the issues. Except it doesn't. I lived on a mixed private and social housing estate. It was always very evident which houses and streets where private. I lived in the social housing btw.

I am someone who's experienced social mobility because of work and becoming finally independent (was NMW for a long time whilst I upskilled), not my peers at school. Because the privalidged kids don't hang out with others that aren't like them anyway. Their parents rarely encourage it and there IS a hierarchy at school. Just plonking kids from disadvantaged background into schools to "level up" is at best naive and patronising. Because it's a much deeper social change that is needed.

As a "poor kid", I got into the "best" school in our town. It's made not a blind difference except for being more othered than I would have been in my catchment school. I was clearly still one of the "poor kids" and there were plenty of us. We just weren't accepted or included by the children from "better" backgrounds. Not wonderful for self esteem. This eased at later secondary years and college, but even within large friendship groups, there were sub groups of those that lived on the right street with 2 married parents who went abroad regularly. Difference always shows up and people are always looking for ways to feel superior. Anyone that's grown up in a medium to large area knows the best streets/areas and how tightly children from those areas socialise.

The answer is to deal with disruption in schools better and to better support those who struggle by funding education better.

I'd be surprised if anyone who works in a school feels this would work. Surely they see day in day out that despite their best efforts to help a lot of children with lots of issues, their impact is limited when you're going home to a sub optimal environment.

I guarantee if you've got horrible parents like mine, it really doesn't matter that much where you go to school. Your problems and disadvantages in life start at a much lower level than where you go to school.

This is already happening at some schools voluntarily and is just one among other catchment criteria. It doesn’t take precedence over sibling places. It only ringfences a few spots for children from poorer families. It makes a lot of sense in areas where catchments are very small, which can be the case in cities. The children who get these spots will also be the next closest to the schools and so may well also be able to walk there or do a short trip by public transport. Maybe this idea doesn’t work as well rurally and possibly it also works better for secondary, but for urban areas where people are renting or buying near certain schools, it allows a handful of children who are less privileged access to an affluent, successful school.

While children from homes where things are more stable with more resources available are likely to do well in a decent but less well-performing school, for these children it could make a huge difference to be able to go to a high-achieving school. Lots of these children have experienced adversity and their outcomes could be massively improved in an environment where they have more chance of thriving.

Meanwhile many children on FSMs are full of potential and would actually be a boon to the school and their classmates. To be in a more diverse environment and not in a bubble is to everyone’s benefit.

Continuity of education through the pyramid over catchment. So if you go to one first school you then get priority at the middle school and high school.

It seems to work well. The schools are outstanding but undersubscribed at first so everyone usually gets their choice and then relaxes knowing it's sorted for the later schools.

So what's the admission criteria at yours then?

But if the school I a really popular they'd presumably have
Looked after children
Siblings (maybe?)
FSM
And it fills up like that. How would that encourage mixing anyway? Surely you'd just get MORE disadvantaged kids stuck together? How wide would the area be they take from?
I'm in London and in my borough we don't have catchments. They just have the usual priority list then distance to the school. You can also apply to a different borough and the same criteria stands.
So they could absolutely fill up with only looked after kids and FSM. Potentially across most of the borough I'm in even if it means kids from other boroughs (some neighbouring boroughs have much rougher schools) then where would the kids from round here be sent? To schools in one of the home counties? I just can't imagine how it could work in practice.

Lots of ordinary state schools aren't catchment based as the priority anyway, ours aren't.

I think it's a great idea tbh.

at some point those who want a more exclusive education for their children will form a more cost effective selective school than some of the very pricey london preps.
people rightly or wrongly associate children from an impoverished background as being disruptive and not the kind of friend that many want their children to chum with (play dates, sleep overs etc.). peers have the most influence on teens and very few want disruptive peers or those who display antisocial behavior for their pre-teen or teen.
it will take a couple decades at the very least for the uk to build up one state school sector that everyone wants to be part of and wants to join in on.
imho the state really needs to sort out adequate provision for children with profound send (more specialist schools and a variety of specialist schools which are available everywhere to all sen children).
after a model for those children with profound needs (which may include some overnights respite options) then work on the next group of children with complex needs which might be more flexible time tabling, then comes the group who need hands on educational options etc.

i don't think it's rocket science if the public wanted change they could make it happen.

Mmmm - shouldn’t we just make all schools good then it doesn’t matter where people live they can get a good education at the school they can walk to?

It isn’t about ‘shoving’ MC kids into schools. It’s about putting disadvantaged kids into schools where they will benefit from being in a different environment with peers with different priorities.

It will help towards equalising those young people. For those in disadvantaged areas start out behind others from the get go . It is never a good idea to house or educate all poor people together.

Saying to improve all schools is idealistic at best. It’s as much if not more about mindsets and expectations as facilities.