Labour reviewing school admission criteria

“Because heaven forbid we support the children who are more likely to be net earners in the future.”

If you do not sort out low expectations, addiction, crime and drop outs, generational trauma, amongst a significant part of the population and their children, then our children will just be paying for them later on anyway? What is the point of being a net earner if you don’t get any privileges or get to keep most of it anyway.

Try to do it without using dc of parents who do care about education and impacting them negatively.

More like heaven forfend we support the children who have most need of support….

I don’t think it’s that. At least not in my mind.

It’s about the natural right and instinct of parents to help their children achieve. If a school is better because more of the families care about and help with education, including expectations of behaviour and support for the school’s decisions, then people will want to send their children there over a less good school with fewer families like that. Catchments allow for this. That’s how it works, and why middle class parents (including the progressive left-wingers) buy to get near better schools.

It’s the belief that we can engineer our way out of family priorities and expectations that I find so fanciful.

If this is a real policy approach, there is something deeply nasty about telling families with more financial means that they are on the bottom for access to better state schools due to having more money, but then charging a luxury tax on school fees if they decide to use that money to pay for their kids education themselves.

It begins to look like it's punitive, it's designed to negatively impact their children. And there is an attitude I see a lot, on MN and elsewhere, that by making things worse for people who are seen as privileged in some way, it somehow balances out their good fortune. It's almost a kind of magical thinking, like it will balance the karma.

It absolutely does start to look like, if you have the good luck, nutrition, correct shoes, etc, to grow up tall, we are going to cut off your feet to make sure you remain the same height as the guy who didn't have those advantages. And if you complain that maybe it would make more sense to make sure all the kids have what they need to grow up tall, you are told you are entitled and your tallness is morally suspect anyway.

Because heaven forbid we support the children who are more likely to be net earners in the future.

If MC children (which is who I infer you are talking about) are the issue then why the proposal to shake up schools so “mouthy little Sophia and James” can be made responsible for dragging up the performance of poor schools?

‘Free’ bus passes may be free to the children but they still cost money! The council still has to pay for the buses to transport them!

“And actually I have sympathy as many people don't gave a safe walking route as they officially live within 2 miles but the foot route is several miles due to the railway and airfield.”

Councils should be planning careful walking and cycling routes for all children and they should take priority, above drivers. Just like they do in much of Europe. Kids who walk and cycle arrive fresh, have better mental and physical health, which then ties in to academic achievement. We should be trying to get away from driving everywhere culture in the first place. School buses could be green - like in European city centres. We are always behind the curve on this stuff and have an unhealthy lazy attitude to health and education.

Could a proponent of this sort of policy (noting that the present evidence for this government pursuing such a policy is scant) please explain what the main reasons are for bad schools being bad and why bussing children around will improve things for all the children.

Why do you find it distasteful? It is just the truth.

Inclusion of children with severe SEN has been completely unsuccessful and has made state schools worse for it. Teachers are over worked. Children are negatively affected and the children with SEN are overwhelmed and are not learning.

Moving FSM children, who statistically come from backgrounds who do not support education, who have higher levels of behaviour issues, higher levels of neglect, will simply mean that those schools will become shit and the parents of MC children will move to other schools to get away from them.

They are rarely called Sophia or James. Not where I live, anyway.

My sister in law has taught early years for many years. She says when you get the class list, you can usually guess from the names which ones will be trouble.

Yeah, that was me that posted and I was in that area too in the early 90s. I don’t remember the 3 test thing, but to be honest, I remember very little! I remember doing quite a few tests in the school hall, I assumed now that they were mocks.

We did have appeals. I shouldn’t have gone to a grammar school at all. I got a borderline mark but got in on appeal as my mum was dying at the time. They said I was under stress, nope! i was shit at maths. But it was her dying wish I went there, as it was a faith school (I actually tried to fail a bit too, as I really didn’t want to go there, I was an atheist even at 12).

A couple of other girls from my year also had the same scores, appealed, but didn’t get in. I was only aware after the fact as the three of us were sent to an empty classroom for a few days, with loads of our school work to tart up, re do and put in folders. It was only later it dawned on me that it was part of some sort of appeal process.

Blimey. How about “Mouthy little Sophia and James”?

I do find the assumption that providing a fairer system for FSM and SEND children would automatically result in a levelling down deeply distasteful.

Yes I agree with this. Mine went to/are at local schools - but I accept that their high school is one of the most sought after in the city (faith). They qualify because of my life long faith. I disagree profoundly with the ‘let’s go to church and volunteer for everything to get the kids into the CofE primary’ approach, but I understand why parents do it. Most parents want what they consider to be the best provision for their DC.

Whatever plan is developed, there will be negative consequences. If measures are put in place to widen access to the perceived best schools there will be traffic/transport challenges. If schools are required to admit only local DC, house prices remain high around the popular schools thus entrenching wealth privilege.

On balance I think I favour primaries admitting local DC only, with additional funding directed to schools in areas of deprivation to provide significant additional staffing. I’ve seen how important this is in a secondary school near me- staff whose responsibility it is to get DC into classes and off the corridors, to staff and support reflection units etc. This school needs more staff than my son’s school - that is quite clear.

Not sure about secondaries - that’s more complex as pupils are old enough to travel independently.

I think it is time to look very carefully at faith schools, to be honest. DS1 went to a faith secondary; DS2 went to faith primary and secondary. DH and I did not go to faith schools, so our family has had a mixed experience. I think they should simply admit the local children, with a parental opt out procedure if parents do not want a particular type of ethos. That would require there to be a few spare places in nearby non faith schools - not sure how that would work.

I do know that growing up in a small town where kids just went to one of three local primaries and then practically everyone went on to the single high school there was none of the stress involved in school applications in a large city with grammar schools, faith schools - varying widely in perceived quality as there are so many of them here (Liverpool) - and non- faith schools, comprehensives and academies.

Edited to add: this was meant to be in reply to a post about grammar schools but the quote got detached…

The big change from when I was at school in a grammar school area (1990s) and now is that the schools used to do some preparation for the 11+ (this was Bucks, so was actually a 12+ at the time), so tutoring wasn’t so necessary. They aren’t allowed to now, or at least seem to be strongly discouraged, which leads to inequality in access to support on strategies and to be taught how to answer the (weird but not necessarily that hard) questions. You also sat the test 3 times and the best score was counted - so kids who had a bad day or needed a bit more practice still had a decent chance. That’s where the pointy-elbows comes in now, in my experience - whether you can cause enough fuss to get the school to support your appeal and pull together enough of a well-worded argument. Our grammar gets a lot of students in based on appeals and many of those are from the most affluent families (private prep, etc. and particular primary schools). I don’t know if appeals were still a possibility in the 90s (I imagine extreme cases like parental bereavement, which wouldn’t just affect one of the three tests, might have been able to appeal) but with three chances to do the test you’d have shut out a lot of the ‘he was ill that day/very anxious because it is so high pressure’ arguments.

I am generally in favour of selective education - my father and aunt were from very deprived backgrounds and benefited from the grammar schools of the 60s - and I work in a selective school but there is no doubt that the current system is grossly unfair. We have a set % of places for Pupil Premium with priority admission before anyone else other than Looked After Children roughly in line with local FSM % and with a lower pass mark. We never fill them, and have a very low FSM %. It’s a combination, I suspect, of ‘it’s not for the likes of us’ attitudes + no help allowed from school to prepare and can’t afford tutoring + council won’t pay for transport if you don’t go to your nearest school, even if you’re going to the nearest selective school (a ridiculous policy in a county with a grammar system) and the journey can be long and awkward if relying on public transport.

Even if people drive a short distance doing this means longer journeys and more congestion and fumes

Parking warden comes out once a term. Solves it for a few days.
But once people can see parking enforcement are out, they magically find somewhere legal to park. So its maybe only one or two getting fined.

And actually I have sympathy as many people don't gave a safe walking route as they officially live within 2 miles but the foot route is several miles due to the railway and airfield.

“It’s all double yellow lines near our Village Primary. Doesn't stop them.”

A parking warden there every day would stop them. A few £80 fines. It is not being policed, that is your council’s issue.

I do not think it is levelling down with correct management of percentage of SEND and FSM across all schools. It would make things better for all, less teenage crime as well etc. But it would need careful management on a yearly basis potentially. Like I said, the most sought after comprehensives where I live actually have a high proportion of SEND with EHCP already. FSM. EAL and SEND are extra challenges for schools and should be shared out fairly locally to aid teacher recruitment. I am going to assume it is the latter driving this primarily.

Its all double yellow lines near our Village Primary. Doesn't stop them.

Councils are free to implement parking charges near schools if they want people to walk and not drive? Nice little money spinner?

Hardly anyone drives here, we’re in London.

But as has been pointed out many times, those schools are better due to the people who live in the area. Whats the alternative? Bring all schools down to the same level? Life isn’t fair.