Primary school admissions - MNHQ needs your thoughts!

Getting back to the original question, I'm in Scotland and feel that the system here, although not perfect, works very well. Children in the main go to their catchment school and it's relatively stress free for both parents and children. I could not be doing with the stress families seem to go through in England.

It's easier to plan for the future, you can find out in a street which house is in which catchment. You're not gambling that you fall within the catchment.

There are very rare cases where they have moved the catchment boundaries, and also where kids have not been offered a catchment place due to overcrowding. But generally if you're in catchment they have to give you a place.

"Are you really saying, talkingofmichaelangelo, that you'd be fine if almost all your local state schools were Muslim, and your DCs would only be admitted if they converted to Islam?"

well of course that would be extremely inconvenient. But the issue isn't that all these hypothetical muslim schools would exist, but that my dcs' options would be so limited and would result in something probably logistically nasty. So the problem in that example isn't the muslim schools, but the lack of places for my dcs. Which was my point. No one would be getting exercised about faith schools if everything was ok for their dcs anyway.

"There are no atheist schools, talking. There's no parallel."
there is absolutely a parallel - if you are talking about wanting or not wanting a certain ideology to dominate your dcs' education (as some on this thread are - saying they will not allow their dcs to go to a faith school). Admittedly it is not a direct parallel in that Brit-humanistlite-capitalist-comicsans- schools (or whatever this vague but blatantly discernible ideology calls itself) do not actively reject Christians, so yes I take that point, but it is not the case that non-faith schools do not have an ideology; or that it will be offensive to some

TBH tiggytape, I think our council saw us as a nuisance and just one more thing to deal with. They had offered us a place at a different school so as far as they were concerned, they had done their job. But it's good to hear not all councils are like that. We would definitely have opted in!

But that's my point wasting, if you put all the June-August born children in school from 5 and a few months/just 5, that means the youngest starting school will be 4 and 3 months. Does that 3 months really make all the difference? My DS was born in August and my DD in April, there certainly wasn't a noticeable difference between them when they started school.

And no child is pushed down the consideration list for a normal
School by performing faith; the opposite is not true.

Talking - in our area we have Muslims, Hindus, Jewish, born again Christians, polish church goers etc in large numbers. Only 2/4 schools within a mile are open to them. If you are not in an Urban mixed area yes any family can generally get into CofE but not in heavily oversubscribed areas. The non faith schools have waiting lists as long as their intakes ( 90 intake 90 on wait list)

There are no atheist schools, talking. There's no parallel.

talkingofmichaelangelo it isn't as easy as that.

On meeting the criteria - it's easy. you can send your dc to a faith school if you want to, if you jump through the hoops. no one is going to put you on a lie detector and demand that you say the Creed

This doesn't work if you:

• already have a faith
• don't want to teach your children it's ok to lie

• if your kid is over six months old and it's a Catholic school you want them to get into. Baptism after six months is as useless as no baptism at all around here.

If you don't want to - because you want nothing to do with the whole thing, and / or despise what you see as hypocrisy - fine, I respect that. So - why is it a problem? that a whole bunch of other families have access to a school that you don't want to send your dcs to?

It's a problem because most of the state schools around here are Catholic. If there are, say 5 Catholic schools in an area and one non-denominational one, then Catholic children can choose from all those 6 schools and non-Catholics have no choice at all. If that one non-demoniationsal school is oversubscribed (it will be) and they don't get in, then they have to go way out of borough instead of being able to go to one of the other five local schools.

Are you really saying, talkingofmichaelangelo, that you'd be fine if almost all your local state schools were Muslim, and your DCs would only be admitted if they converted to Islam?

Although the private school thing was really just these particular parents exploiting the summer born/school age rules to allow for their indecision so I don't think that could be addressed, so ignore that last part!

One issue we came up against that I don't think has been mentioned here is the longevity of the waiting list.

DD did not get into the same school as DS, as we were just outside catchment, but we were advised that she was 2nd on the waiting list. Since I knew that one child in that year was actually going to a private school (although the parents decided to keep the place at the primary school open until their child was 5 just in case they didn't like the private school - agghhh! but that's another story), I was crossing my fingers that we might stand a chance at some point during the year that she would be able to transfer to her brother's school, provided nobody else her age moved into the catchment area.

What we didn't know, was that the waiting list only lasted until Christmas. The LA could not explain to us why, other than that it was inconvenient for their office staff to keep it open - although they did not say how.

What we ALSO did not know, was that you can't apply to the same school more than once in one year.

Therefore, if a place became unexpectedly available in January, we would no longer be on the waiting list for that space and would not be allowed to apply for that place until the following school year. However, anybody else no matter how far away they lived, no matter whether they had a sibling or not, WOULD be able to apply provided they had not already done so that school year.

Closing down the waiting list just does not make sense to me. The waiting list was moveable - a catchment area child would have gone straight to the top of the waiting list, so DD would not have denied a 'more local' child a place.

Perhaps MNHQ could suggest a waiting list should last the whole school year? Also, if a child has accepted a private school place, a state school place should not be held open for them on the basis but that they should reapply if they decide to move back to the state system

Of course ArcheyAnnie, I can see the annoyance of not being able to access the local school as it is Catholic.
I wasn't actually aware that C of E schools had started insisting that you needed to be practising as I know they never used to be. This is interesting to know, I can certainly see how difficult it would be living in an area with C of E and Catholic schools.
I actually live in an area where there are Jewish Muslim and Catholic Schools together with plenty of non faith schools so there is plant of choice ( although of course everyone fights to get into the top performing non faith school)

Yes, of course someone has to be the youngest, but only 4 years (and a few days) old is ridiculous - it's a lot younger than in lots of other countries.

on faith schools -
those who are anti- them seem to include both atheists who wouldn't want their children to be educated within a faith, and atheists who think it is unfair that they can't send their children to be educated within a faith (as they don't meet the criteria). Seems like a couple of inconsistent positions - if it is ok for atheists to say "I choose this non-christian value system for my dcs' education" why is it not ok for christians to say "I choose this christian value system for my dcs' education"?

On meeting the criteria - it's easy. you can send your dc to a faith school if you want to, if you jump through the hoops. no one is going to put you on a lie detector and demand that you say the Creed. If you don't want to - because you want nothing to do with the whole thing, and / or despise what you see as hypocrisy - fine, I respect that. So - why is it a problem? that a whole bunch of other families have access to a school that you don't want to send your dcs to?

Essentially none of this would matter if there were enough places and parents felt more secure about the whole thing. this faith school thing is just one scape goaty thing to get knickers in a twist about while the whole system is riven with anxiety and inadequacy. And this nonsense about people feeling they have to move to get their child into a school. this is insane. Just think about it. "what was wrong with your old house?" "nothing really except it happened to be one of those that doesn't get state education." "oh right I see." WTF? How did we ever accept any of this?

Thanks for link.

Thing is though, summer borns are seen by some as being disadvantaged because they are at the bottom of the age range, yes? Some are a year younger than the oldest in the class. So if you allow those kids to defer until next year, they will all be the oldest in their class. So the spring born kids, previously in the middle of the pack, will now be a year younger than the oldest in the class and seen to be at a disadvantage because some of the kids in the year have a whole extra year of maturity, learning etc on them. Where does it stop? Someone has to be the youngest.

No I do agree on that. I would rather see informal learning to 6 ish (probably still in school, but less formal). The summer campaign is very nimby though. I respect your point earlier that it is hard to change the big issue so maybe hitching on to a pragmatic subset is smart. But I don't respect their argument that it is the issue.

"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win." Nighty-night everyone

SweetieXPie the reason I always talk about Catholic schools is because that's the case where I live, that Catholic schools dominate the state provision. I don't know any Muslim or Jewish state schools around here, but if they dominated the provision to the detriment of my child and other people's children, then I'd object to them, too.

If there was no Catholic provision near you, and only or mainly only Muslim state schools, to which your DCs weren't admitted unless they converted to Islam, I bet you'd be cross, too.

Penguin I have mentioned it before, I have never heard of summer born issue up until last year, when I read about it in the newspapers and read IFS 2013 report on the subject. Because I am from a country where parents decide when to send their children to school and they can choose to send them in September between they are 6.5 yo and up until the day before they are 8yo, needless to say, being born in summer/winter/autumn etc is not an problem there. Shortage of places is not unique to England, sadly, but it is not a reason to deny the parents the choice.

Btw yes I only have my own experience but maybe our school ( a national lead school etc) is just very good at dealing with summer borns. We have over 800 in school and it's never ever been mentioned as an issue. I am heavily involved in the parent body and it's never ever been mentioned as an issue. I only know one summer born who started a year later but that was due to SEN

The faith school issue is very relevant in oversubscribed urban areas. Those who don't live in it will never really understand the stress for everyone with their first child. The RC schools (a few) were always RC with the odd non RC child. All quite casual. Now you have to be in the correct parish and attend mass. Non RC don't have a chance as not all RC get in.
CofE used to be open to all. Not now - 2 years church attendance needed.
In our area that means your options are cut if you are not RC or CofE by 2/3 or 2/4 dependant on what road you are on.
Then you need to live within 0.3m to get in what's left.
After that - a school that is 2 miles away with no direct bus route.
Add in siblings that live miles away in cheaper areas as child one got in them they moved ...,

I realise that. I have repeatedly made the point that that age is a long stop and not, as summer campaigners often talk, the age at which most children start. My point was simply that if deferral is an issue for half the year then the issue is not deferral.

Penguin different children will be affected to different degree, but yes, the law says that a child born in April comes of CSA on 31 August. it is the law.