Labour reviewing school admission criteria

Well I'm lucky enough to live on a borough where most of the schools are pretty good. So I'm not too bothered from a quality perspective. I do think kids should go to a school near their home. Then they have local mates and can walk. We have an obesity crisis and polluted air.
But apart from that the focus should be on improving the poor schools. Not just shoving the MC kids into them.

It doesn't change the fact that what I said is true.

I'd like to tell you that I'm not one of the countless state school parents who celebrated the financial blow that private school parents, struggling to pay school fees, have received. I homeschool my kids, which means I cover the cost of their education, and sometimes I wonder if one day the government might target homeschooling parents for additional taxes.

I’m strongly against VAT on school fees. If the goal is to raise revenue for public funds, Labour should have extended VAT to other semi-private educational activities like universities and so on—not just private school fees.

Wonderwendy

Ah right As long as. your kids aren’t affected.

I despair.

Of course the most vulnerable in our society should be prioritised.

But that's not what this policy ia doing is it? It's placing higher priority on some kids over others. We have a school about 10 mins walk from here. It's rated "good". I want my kids to go there because then they can walk and our lives will be better. There is an "outstanding" school about 40 minutes walk or 2 buses away that I wouldn't include on my list because it would be a PITA for travel. There are also a bunch of other "good" schools in the borough but I want the walkable one. If be bloody fuming if they had to travel miles for another kid to get their space (and also have to travel miles!)

I don’t think we should put it on six year olds to improve the education of other children

What about every child being equal?

If the schools are bad then Labour should improve them.

I don’t think we should put it on six year olds to improve the education of other children.

'The children in them'.

The children who can't afford to live in the catchment with the better schools are 'the children in them'.

The issue is there are too many from the same impoverished area.

Its the same as living in ghettos really. Spread people out into the wider community and it will dilute many of the issues.

Its a great idea to give kids from these areas different and better opportunities.

Approx 20% of the kids from my children's primary school walked to school
The rest took a bus or were driven.

Its normal in many areas to commute to schools.

Its easier again in secondary, as the children can travel independently.

If the schools in poor areas are poor then they should be improved. But it isn’t the schools themselves is it? It is the children in them. So in other words, Labour want to use middle class children to make schools in poor areas look good.

It will reduce the cost of housing too making housing more affordable.

Most importantly it gives children from a lower socio economic background the opportunity to be educated with people from different backgrounds.

It has huge long term benefits for those children.

Well fair enough. I think it's nuts personally. Even from just a congestion point of view. Id want my kids to be able to walk to school if there was one nearby. It's crazy to think that wouldn't be the case for loads of kids.

The parents of the fee paying schools won't see it as an issue really. They've already had to move schools.
Oh and just in case you don't remember, the 'political suicide' line was trotted out prior to January too.

I genuinely think its a great idea to mix the kids up. It will go a long way towards levelling out state schools. I'm all for it.

Testing kids at 11 and telling some they’re not good enough for the local school isn’t right either. In fact I think it’s worse. It personally makes a kid think they are stupid whilst they sit on that bus being bused out….and yet people seem to be happy with that system

All schools need improving and this policy is simply avoiding the very real problem with our schools

The kids whose parents can no longer afford fee paying schools will potentially be missing out on the better state schools as well now. Wow. I don't believe it will happen actually. It would be political suicide. And SO bad for the planet if everyone ends up not being able to just walk to their local school. Imagine how clogged the roads will be!

Second, this risks punishing families who’ve scrimped and saved to live near a decent school. Plenty of people in so-called “middle-class” postcodes are stretching every penny to pay the rent or mortgage just to stay in catchment. Telling them their child could lose out to someone from further away because of a tick-box “background” assessment is going to create resentment, not fairness

The parents who prioritied paying for their kid's education over everything else felt similarly but the glee when VAT was introduced was nauseating. I am very pleased that the same posters will get the same 'punishment' as you call it.

I know it happens in some areas already — and I think that’s exactly why expanding it without addressing the knock-on effects is risky.
It’s one thing when distance is the deciding factor, because it’s at least a transparent and easily understood rule. But once you start adding “background” into the mix, you’re asking families to accept losing a local place based on a subjective definition that isn’t even consistent nationally.
And yes, means-testing transport might soften the blow for some, but it still doesn’t solve the bigger issue: a child spending an extra hour a day travelling, missing sleep, or losing time for homework and extracurriculars just because their parents don’t tick the right box. That’s a real, practical impact on a kid’s life — and no amount of policy theory changes the fact it’s them who carry the cost day-to-day.

The hypocrisy on this thread is amusing

Posters should go back to the GLEE about VAT on private schools and how unfair it was that some kids had better access than others to certain schools.

Now the tables have turned as was always going to happen.

I am very very pleased all the posters on those threads are going to get the level playing field they so desperately wanted.

They’ll probably means test school transport aswell

Losing places to kids living further away already happens in some areas.

I can see what Labour’s trying to do here — address inequality and give kids from disadvantaged backgrounds better access to good schools — but this “priority for working-class background” idea feels like a blunt instrument that’s going to create more problems than it solves.

First, “socio-economic background” is a notoriously tricky thing to define and measure. Is it purely income? Parents’ jobs? Housing status? Generational education levels? You’d need a whole new bureaucracy to police it — and parents will game the system. (Let’s not pretend they won’t; if there’s a loophole, someone will find it faster than you can say “catchment area.”)

Second, this risks punishing families who’ve scrimped and saved to live near a decent school. Plenty of people in so-called “middle-class” postcodes are stretching every penny to pay the rent or mortgage just to stay in catchment. Telling them their child could lose out to someone from further away because of a tick-box “background” assessment is going to create resentment, not fairness.

Third, the root problem is school quality, not just admissions. If every school were genuinely good, parents wouldn’t be fighting like gladiators for a handful of spots at the “best” ones. Change the funding, resources, and leadership across the board, and the postcode lottery becomes irrelevant.

This kind of policy sounds nice in theory, but in practice it’s divisive and fiddly — and it risks pitting working-class and lower-middle-class families against each other, instead of tackling the structural issues that fail kids in the first place.

Someone has to bear the cost of school transport for middle-class children who live just two miles from a decent school but lost their spot due to their social background. Now they have to attend a poorer school farther away if no place becomes available, not to mention the extra hassle of waking up earlier, eating breakfast earlier, and getting ready earlier.

Totally agree with this

Whats good for the goose is good for the gander comes to mind.

People thought it was very unfair for other people to send their children to private schools and were quite smug when the new VAT laws were introduced. There are threads and threads on MN from posters who rejoiced that some private school kids now had to go to the state schools.
Everyone is aware that the schools with better results attract parents who are more invested in their children's education, driving house prices in the catchment up.

Just as posters were happy that privately educated kids would be 'level' with state kids, I am just as happy that lower income kids will have access to the 'better' schools.

It will create the much desired education 'level' playing field.

All children have a right to an education
What do you propose for expelled children given that you say

they should have ‘no recourse to attend another school’ …. How do they get an education then

I doubt the Government can afford that

Levelling up is just ideology, doesn't happen in practice, even if you are able to level school environment that is only a number of hours per day, some children will still be disadvantaged outside.

With their revent policies on private schools they will just reduce the number of places available in the state system.

👀