Random allocation of places (not by distance) : thoughts and experiences?

That's a comment from the parent who has not been offered a place at the schools they put as their preferred choice, not an independent statement - or even one from the Local Authority or government based upon actual sale prices; it would be difficult to conclude that the only reason behind house price inflation reducing is an admission policy when it could be for multiple reasons including average incomes, increased inflation making everywhere more expensive, changes in bank affordability calculations, knock on effects from people selling in other areas such as London to relocate to coastal areas, loss of major employers in the area and myriad other factors.

The article also states that there was going to be a change to the policy (but not that the LA policy had been changed at that point). As it was published in March 2017, shortly after National Offer Day, due to Local Authority policy and therefore new admissions arrangements to take into account any revisions having to be determined well in advance by Law, the timescales involved mean that applications for September 2019 would have been the last year before a significant change.

Rolls are falling now, the bulge years are all but through most secondaries. We need fewer places, not more.

The lottery can't create or destroy places in school. It an

It’s generally advised on here to put a “banker” last on the list of preferences even if it’s bad, as it’s better to be in a neatby bad school.than a further away bad school.

It isn’t just good schools that would be in the lottery. I’d rather be at the bad school 100m away than the bad school 2km away (and I’m sure the same is true for those living 100m from that bad school)

perhaps we would both prefer the good school right in the middle, but the lottery means we miss out (luck of the draw) and both get the worst possible option, and the kids cross each other on the 2km journey

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/14/school-admissions-lottery-system-brighton

I can't find much recent evidence, but initial studies didn't seem great.

Distance as a proxy for income is such a tiny issue, especially in the places you propose this idea. Distance as a proxy for income is much more exaggerated in lower density population areas.

The impact of this in London would be relatively small, and nowhere else has good enough transport.

For example I live 8km from Birmingham City centre. Within your system I'd potentially have a 50 minute car journey to a school 4km away. Yet the local school is no better or worse than the ones 3km away. I'd rather my children were part of a community school and could walk their with friends.

Why do you think it will lead to better schools OP?

Well, actually, they did.

For secondary school, government data for 2024 based upon reporting in Census;

6.9% of parents in Brighton submitted an appeal in 2024
4.6% went to panel
38.4% were successful

2.4% in Chelsea (inner London)
2.1% went to panel
14.3% were successful

3.8% in Brent (Michaela's borough, outer London)
3.4% to panel
1.6% were successful

The data by school isn't openly available as it could potentially identify individual students.

If I pull the same data from 2019

Brighton - 3.9%
Chelsea - 7.4%
Brent - 2.2%

Which suggests that something quite significant has happened in Brighton's admissions system for such an increase in secondary appeals in that time (at the same time, something significant has also happened in Chelsea that fewer parents are submitting appeals).

Every appeal costs schools money. Which is fine as it's the parents' legal right - but anything that increases dissatisfaction leading to appeals and their costs still needs to come from school budgets.

Maybe the transport pressure is people moving 3 miles away from their closest school, to be passed by another child travelling in the opposite direction away from their" closest school.... Multiplied by 2000.

Well, they'd possibly still be travelling 45 minutes past 3 schools, whilst other kids travel 45 minutes in the opposite direction to get to the school 2 minutes walk away from your house...

Im .not sure your random allocation would work that well in reality.
You'd have to have some sort of admission policy for things like ECHP, looked after kids, covenants on schools, etc then you're saying it's siblings? But surely if there's not enough paces left for all siblings, it's going to be random? You could still easily end up with kids at different schools.
Child A gets allocated School X in 2025, twin B gets allocated School X in 2027, but twin C was randomly allocated School Y, because there isn't enough space?

Would you be able to appeal those decision? On what criteria?

I have absolutely no skin in this game (kids go private), and it’s quite tedious of you to accuse anyone who disagrees with you of self interest.

There is a lot to be said for certainty of knowing which your most likely school is, whether you are well within the last distance admitted in the last few years etc. I appreciate there are school black spots of uncertainty, but this system would lead to much more uncertainty.

Commuting to and from school can be tiring. And for all you say about limited areas (ranging in your different posts from 2km to 5km), clearly the closer a child is, the shorter and simpler their commute (on foot, preferably). Mine have a long commute (our choice and I own that) and cancelled trains or transport alerts can stretch days even longer.

Talking about applying this only to “areas of good public transport” is really quite limiting. Even within London, there may or may not be a direct and reliable bus/train/tube between any two given points. Other cities will also suffer from this - transport often is structured on a hub and spoke model, meaning you head into a central point eg nearest mainline station and back out again on a different bus, rather than being able to go direct. Also - bus routes change, get less frequent etc - a plausible route one year might be less so a year later.

And I also think there’s something to be said for having broadly the same system across the country. How do you decide when local public transport is “good enough” for a random allocation? If c13% of children in school are in London, as you mentioned, when does London shade into the Home Counties? What if there are red double decker in Cheam but none two miles away in Ewell, which of them qualifies?

Honestly, it seems a lot more woolly than the current system. And honestly, I don’t think people want random school allocations, they want all schools to be good so that they know their nearest school is good and so have no reason to want any other! So putting effort into redesigning a system in a way that - by your own oft repeated statement - can only apply to certain urban areas - seems a lot less preferable than efforts to improve schools overall.

I don't think it would really work in London either.

Who wants a 30 minute commute when it could be 3 minutes?

It wouldn't create better schools anyway.

Why would it disadvantage lower income families @NeverDropYourMooncup? I think OP's point is that the current system disadvantages lower income families (due to unaffordable house prices near good schools) and this would improve that.

It won't work in London, though. It'll disadvantage lower income families, cause traffic pressures even worse than they are already and result in greater costs to schools in respect of the resultant upsurge in admissions appeals due to parents exercising their legal right to appeal because they haven't been allocated a place by a distance tie breaker.

One of our reasons about choosing Yorkshire over London (beside house prices etc!) Was knowing that we could chose a house and know DD (with additional needs, but not severe enough to count for admissions) would go to the school we targeted as being right for her. Not the stress of waiting to see which one of 6 schools, if any, listed on a form. Or long commutes etc. And we do not regret that decision.

(The catchment covers million pound houses favoured by premiership footballers and council flats incidentally. The joys of less dense housing)

@ParentOfOne to be fair.... public transport or not - most people I know simply wouldn't want random allocations.

That's the point. People know it wouldn't work so no one wants it.