Labour reviewing school admission criteria

I mean, I guess if we could have some decent public transport to actually get to these schools - both for the published start/ finish tines, and taking into account extra curricula clubs starts and finishes, go for it.

A school round us has openly said they wouldn't be able to meet the government guidance of being open 32.5 hours a week, as the busses won't facilitate it, and it would leave kids waiting 1h 45 mins for the next bus.

Not going to the local school is very much a privilege of public transport availability, or a dense population making more than one school walkable.

Solicitor here, have worked my arse off and continue to do so, pay huge amounts of tax (DH and I both top end tax bracket) but fuck it, seems it doesn't matter.

I disagree
All schools that are failing should have additional support
More teachers
Smaller classes
After and before school activities
More discipline

Basically Investment!!
Make all schools good and all kids happy with their education and environment

Put tax money in the places where it is more effective in the long term for the good of all

I fully agree, having moved into an area with the 11+ when my oldest was 3, secondaries weren't really something we were thinking about, and I didn't come from an area which did 11+ so I didn't know much about it, but I'm not convinced it's a great idea. However, being in an area with it, we will put aside our principles and pay for tutoring.

Longer term yes I agree they should gradually be phased out. But in the short term this tutor was offering support to level up and the school couldn't accept, which was really frustrating - I see some of my daughters friends as having the ability, but the thought of even trying to self study for it isn't within their parents thought processes. One of her friends is quite ambitious and asked me if they could join my daughter at tutoring. But I can't afford to pay for 2 spaces, paying for 1 will be a stretch but we will go without any holidays and extras next year to pay for it, which I appreciate still puts us in a privileged position. I spoke to her mum and offered to photocopy all the tutoring materials for her daughter - I understood that I might upset/offend her by offering but thought the benefit to her daughter worth more than an uncomfortable conversation, and her response was that she wanted her daughter to go to same comp as she did, but thanked me for the offer.

Agree. Its stupidity, it achieves nothing.

Because it is difficult to make a school “good” when the majority of children aren’t engaged in education, and don’t have parents who engage either. It also becomes self selecting. The minute that a school begins a to improve, more people with more money flood the school and poorer kids are pushed out.

It isn’t “bleating on about fairness” it is about providing equity. The fact is the poverty gap in education is widening. Closing that won’t disadvantage wealthier kids, it will stop disadvantaging poorer kids who, by every metric, start 10 paces behind.

Conversely, less bright children were written off at age 11. If they lived in poverty, that was it, wealthier kids who failed the 11+ still had the advantage of parents engaged in their education and were able to support them through their exams, and give them opportunities to get a decent job. My parents are the perfect example of it. My dad was from a very poor family. Although he passed the 11th+, his siblings didn’t, and his parents didn’t believe in education so he did 2 years at the secondary modern then was told he needed to leave school and work. It was only because when he reached 1k he wanted better for himself than being a farm labourer and joined the army.

That had a lot to do with my mum. She was from a middle class family, she failed the 11+ (despite having been at a private school) and left school with O Grades in Art and Home Economics. Her parents never let her settle for that and organised for her to take an exam in the civil service (where her aunt worked), she went on to work there until she had her kids and then returned to office work when we went to school. My Grandma and Granda (mum’s mum and dad) had many a chat with my dad, encouraging him to see past the barriers his own mum had set, and when he said he was going to join the army, my grandma was the one who helped him and supported him whereas Granny (dad’s mum) effectively turned her back on him and had a lifelong hatred of my mum because of it. Together they eventually built a successful life, far beyond anything my dad could have expected if he had continued working as a farm labourer.

Grammar schools were never the panacea they were sold as. They broadened the class divide and left millions of kids on the scrap heap based on one guy’s assertion that IQ was fixed by the age of 11.

I think this is true. It's not fair that poor children are unfairly disadvantaged, but I don't see it's fair either for a child luckily born to rich parents with a great school down the road gets sent to a failing school and has to travel miles for the "privilege" either.

We are fortunate to have three good schools within walking distance. Traffic in the area is terrible and if we had to send our child to the neighbouring town which has bad schools, we'd a) struggle to get there as it's 100% in the wrong direction for DH's work, there's little (and v slow) public transport and we only have one car. And b) I'd still try my best to find an alternative, by either borrowing money to afford private or moving somewhere else. I don't care if there are lots of poor people at a school but I do care if a school is failing.

It doesn't actually cost money. Local libraries have many study books and will order in others on request for free.

An excellent tutor local to us offered free 11+ tutoring during school time in school as she couldn't earn money at that time, but school wasn't allowed to accept.

I think its more complex than saying 'parents don't care'. Many care very much - some of my daughters friends have excellent attendance, appear very well cared for, parents com to every parents evening etc. But the ambition isn't there - I overheard them talking about what they were going to do when older - the children with professional parents said things like 'teacher,doctor, wildlife photographer, singer on west end' the ones who had parents on lower incomes said 'carer, hairdresser, nail technician' - all valuable jobs but not really 'aspirational'

My parents were both very poor growing up and has very difficult childhoods, and were determined that we would have a different upbringing, we were not rich by any standards, but I had expectations placed on me that I would do well at school,go to uni, get a professional job. 'Failure' was not an option. But now people can have a reasonably comfortable secure life in a low wage job topped up with UC, secure council housing etc. And we never want to return to the days where children grew up as my Dad did, but doing that did instill a drive and determination in him.

I think trying to increase equality of opportunities is a good thing. As would be stopping rich people buying all the houses around successful schools. But I'm not convinced Labour's idea will actually solve much and I can see many issues with it.

In an ideal world of course all schools would be great. I'd much rather see the government (any government) truly solving the staff retention problems, recruitment problems, stupid curriculum problems, unnecessarily overmanaged and draconian academies, and societal problems causing parents and teachers to often work against each other.

I’m torn. We all know how much easier it is for people with money to rig the system, even outside private schools. Whether it’s by buying in the right catchment, tutoring, social capital, knowing where to look for all the right information. That said I think for the squeezed middle I am not sure it’s fair- the super rich will still be able to pay to go private, the very disadvantaged will get priority but where does this leave everyone else. I think the devil will be in the detail.

Agree

I agree. And the environmental impact too. We should be encouraging people to walk to their local school, not drive to a further one.

Or, scrap the 11+. It is entirely unnecessary.

Yeah, having those poor kids in your middle class school will drag it right down, much better to leave the poor kids in their own poor area so that your children aren’t infected by it.

Or, you could look at the statistics which show where poorer kids attend schools with a majority of wealthier kids, the poorer kids do better. This policy isn’t going to mean better schools are full of poorer kids, it just means a greater spread. If every school has 30% poorer kids and 70% wealthier, then that’s a good start.

Is it a shame that all schools can’t be good schools

Or allow schools to support more able pupils with 11+ prep. Labour has banned state schools from supporting children going for the 11+ beyond doing 1 mock test with them. Private primaries fully prep their children going for the test. The fact that many more get in the private primaries than state isn't because they are brighter, but because they are fully prepared.

Our tutor said she offered some free sessions to our local primary, they just has to select 6-8 children who the school thought had the ability to pass but not the ability to pay, but the school said they were unable to accept. She wanted to do it to level opportunity but also as she had free time during school day as all tutoring is after school, so it had to be via the school. I mentioned this to head and she said DfE wouldn't allow her to accept.

Allowing state schools to run free or low cost prep sessions would equal the opportunity, but that's levelling up rather than levelling down, so doesn't fit with the labour agenda.

TICK ✅

But how would it be more cost effective? Surely Five hundred children require the same amount of classrooms, equipment and teachers whether they are in one large school of 500 or two smaller schools with 250 pupils in each. Grammar schools, especially back in the 1950’s and 1960’s (before tutoring became so widespread) gave thousands of bright children from poorer working class families the opportunity to have a solid academic education which often led to careers that would have been closed to them.

Grammar schools were generally smaller, well they were in my city, so I was in an intake of 90. It became a comp by merging with the boys school nextdoor and the secondary modern on the other side of the field. In taKe now became over 300 a year. Still the same buildings but if a new comp was built, as some were, they were much bigger than the grammar schools. Other areas might be different but that was my city.

They implicitly acknowledge that some schools are worse than others.
Blame it on the pupils/parents.
Do nothing to address the actual cause.

But this levelling-down agenda somehow addresses an unmet need of 'fairness' while the country slowly crumbles.

I think the difference in background to achievement can be seen in my parents.:

My dad is very clever, very ambitious and an over-worker. He also failed his 11+ so went to the secondary modern due to the situation he was in. His parents had left school at 12/14, and had no qualifications. He was offered to switch over to the grammar at 13+ and again in the 6th form but chose not to because he thought it wasn't for "people like him". He did maths (gaining 2 better grades than his teacher), and another A-level at school, and had to take the third at a night-school as his school didn't offer it - actually they didn't really offer A-levels at all; they just did it for him. He took 3 years over doing them because
There was very little support from parents because it was out of their zone entirely. I have no idea whether they were proud of him or thought that he was wasting his time when he could be earning.
He worked 3 jobs each week so he could afford to run his motorbike to get to school/night school and for books etc. He got BCD (I think, certainly not higher) and went to uni.

Dm was from a different group. She went to grammar; her parents would have degrees nowadays, but the war kind of got in the way. They would have supported her, got her to school etc. She was well motivated, but not pushing in the way df was. She got three As and also went to uni.

Now I'm not saying that Df is cleverer than dm, but he's certainly comparable - but the grades aren't.

So I'm very supportive of schemes that help those who are in df's situation. But they have to be prepared to help where they are. Df chose not to move to the grammar, even though it was clear he should be there, because it wasn't "for people like us". He had to work to get to school, and push to do what he wanted to do.

What is needed to be done is make working fashionable. So those, like df, who want to work aren't pushed out by peers. Df was more than capable of dealing with that (v. sporty too) but many aren't. Give them opportunities to learn inside and outside school. Help them to see that working can take them out of that situation
And lastly, bring back grants for poorest students so they don't have to work just to keep their heads above water.

So you're saying that m/c parent scare more than FSM and deprived parents. In fact it's often the opposite those kids value education because they know how important it can be to social mobility. If they get into schools where they have more resources (computers to do homework and revision on etc) and where they're pushed to be as ambitious as possible they will do so. Rather than what often happens which is telling them to aim low because of their family backgrounds. Those parents cannot attend parents evenings because of shift work, or working nights in non formal 9-5 jobs, they care but they have very different lives, rather than blaming them schools should adapt to their population and families. Rather than doing information morning at 10am like people don't have to work and can't take of that much time, because fundamentally they need to feed their kids first. Rather than schools giving kids detention the minute they have to wear trainers (because their schools shoes have holes) and their parents honestly cannot afford a new pair of shoes for a couple of weeks. It's not impossible it just requires adaption of policies and more consideration and training on trauma informed care and caring for deprived students

Also some parents cannot help, especially if they are not highly educated they cannot help with homework and that doesn't make them worse parents. Also they nay have to work evenings, do extra shifts so yes they're less present or can't read every night but it's not because they don't want to, but often have to prioritise bills. These populations are also more likely to be ethnic minorities who definitely have a massive emphasis on education and doing well and their kids take this on and often do a lot of work themselves simply because of the attitude their giving, even if sometimes their parents don't have the skills or the ability to help as much.

I agree with this. Our kids went to a “good school” because we worked our arses off to be able to buy in the area.

We are fairly close to an area where around half adults of working age are on benefits, despite there being jobs available. My friend who likes to think she’s a liberal was all about “levelling up” until her DH got a job in the high school in this area. He says he spends about 30 minutes of an hour long class just settling the class down, dealing with drama and general disobedience. Homework is never done, parents don’t come to parents night, the schools academic results are some of the worst in the country.

Whilst I would love to think that mixing up the demographic would be fair, I think it would penalise the kids in the “good school” - there are some kids in the school who get bused in from the rougher area and they have to change out of their blazers before going home to avoid getting beaten up.

And before I get accused of snobbery or whatever - I am from a poor, working class background, had alcoholic parents, experienced a lot of childhood abuse and a really terrible start in life generally. So I know what’s it’s like to grow up in poverty.

Maybe that’s how they’ll get votes after all.