Primary school admissions - MNHQ needs your thoughts!

On point 3 - a friend has pointed out to me that this is exactly what some of the nonconformist christians (Methodists and suchlike) did with tbeir schools- handed then over to fhe community to benefit everyone. The CofE and the Catholic church didn't, obviously, but there's nothing stopping them.

Waspie has my vote as well.

I definitely like point 2.

Point 1 would be very difficult as some schools would vary more than others.

With siblings - if you were out of catchment when placed in a school not of your choice, then you should get sibling priority.

I think all that sounds very sensible indeed! I'll vote for you.

In practice, all children being able to go to the closest school would be v difficult indeed in London and probably some other cities - but there's no reason why they shouldn't say at a school within 1km or 2km or something sensibly walkable (to allow for extra classes being able to be set up in a school that has more space than others).

My son is Autumn born and I felt his last year at nursery was a total waste of his time. Perhaps I should start a campaign for autumn born children (where Autumn ends in February obviously) so that they can go to school earlier?

I am late summer born. I started school at 4 and a tiny bit. I'm not even slightly bothered by it and have never felt it hindered me.

The process for applying for summer born children is identical to every other child: you apply by mid-January for September. You can then defer your child's entry until after Christmas, after Easter or miss reception entirely if you wish. If your child has particular developmental needs or SN you can apply for them to start reception a year later but this is a separate application and dealt with like an appeal.

My thoughts on primary admissions are:

1. the LA should be obliged to provide a school place at the closest school. If this means additional classes/creating a new school then they should be obligated to do this.

2. The LA must ensure that any additional homes built have new schools/classes included in the area to offset need.

3. There should be no faith schools at all. The church can donate them to the state (like people who can't afford the upkeep on stately homes donate them to the NT). This would free up local places for children who live nearer the school.

4. Admission criteria should be: Statemented/looked after children followed by catchment siblings, catchment, non-catchment siblings (in LA), non-catchment, out of LA. Catchments should overlap if possible so that each child has two catchment schools so they can choice the closest.

Proof of residence should be obligatory and LA's should also do better fraud checks.

I agree totally ice. Are you a teacher?

Phonics in nursery is ridiculous.

I mean you can try teaching kids to walk when they are 3mo...but in reality all you do is waste your time. They get it when they are ready.

Phonics is an example of something that can be picked up in a week once kids are actually ready to learn it and something you can be battering away at for years making no progress if they aren't. Oh and while you are battering you are actually reducing kids interest in reading....it has been shown that starting reading later makes no difference to attainment but does increase interest in reading...

And meanwhile over on AIBU there is another thread on whether it is ok to lie about where you live to get a school place

Interestingly now I have looked, all the local schools have their phonics check results on their web sites. The formal school I was referring to earlier has a very very high pass rate. I guess they all want to be seen as excelling

There was no mention of it at our school, either. In fact, my daughter was unaware that she had done a test (she passed). I think that's as it should be!

Year 1. Looks like June

Or ours. Which year is it done?

Thanks Ionone. I'll look. I wondered as there has been no mention of it at our school, either by teachers or other parents.

Discussion of the phonics test on the Primary board by teachers seems to suggest that it is something very easily passed by children who have actually been taught phonics and have no additional needs preventing them from taking advantage of this. Sadly there are tons of schools that are not teaching phonics particularly well. Like SATS, the phonics test started off as a way to measure a school's effectiveness at delivering basics and has now morphed into a source of stress for children and parents.

I must say, from what I have seen of it, it seems hard to believe that you'd need to start phonics in nursery for a child to pass it. It really is not that hard!

I would love to know teacher views on whether the phonics test is driving this? The endless testing seems to be sucking the fun out of KS1??
Can academies opt out ?

I don't get it. Surely a lot of kids at the school don't go to the nursery . Also, if they are cramming stuff into YR, aren't they too focused on test scores and not enough on the kids? Sounds sad all round. This is why I totally agree with people saying we need more play based YR, for all schools and not just some.

Yes, ridiculous isn't it? I'm sure it's not necessary but that's what they've decided to do to take the 'pressure' off cramming it all into YR. Other schools will approach it a different way, I wish we did!

Doc - Is that a school nursery? Yikes! Our playgroup does nothing more taxing in terms of 'formality' than sometimes asking the oldest children to sit still for a story!

Doc and that's where it starts to go wrong. The formalising of education for 4 year old then does easily creep in as they are prepping for the phonics test I guess.... Ikes

Sorry about starting again on the summer born thing but until the cohorts from the first years of 3 term YR for all (4 years ago-ish?) go through the end of KS2 and onto GSCEs we won't have data to say that this recent 'fix' for summer borns is working or not.
I thought it was a step in the right direction. I think parents can state a preference about when to start during the year and whether to do a full day or not.
The EYFS should be about play and a smooth transition from nursery to YR, especially for those in the attached school nursery.
Unfortunately things like the phonics test and other targets are forcing schools to ramp up the 3Rs in YR, even our nursery does phase 2/3 phonics

A separate issue which I don't think has been mentioned, but I do think is quite important, is the degree to which pressure on places is meaning you need a fair degree of both local knowledge and to be able to understand fairly sophisticated data to fill in your form correctly. Round by me is a mess of bulge classes. Looking at admission distances for previous years you could easily think "oh, we should be fine for X", not knowing that X took a bulge class two years ago and they will only have 15 non-sibling places. Looking at where neighbours kids go doesn't tell you much any more.

I was vaguely alluding to this earlier (but poorly). It is not at all good that the system requires complex analytic skills in order to make any use of the preference system. It's bad for everyone, but particularly disadvantages certain groups who (for a range of reasons) will find it more difficult to navigate the whole thing.

Penguin that's a good point re bulge classes and more info. No where near us has bulge classes (which do really skew things). There have however been schools which have expanded. You may look at the last 3 days data for one of our local schools and see that the distance was 0.4, 0.42, 0.43 etc and then 0.64. This was not due to dropping popularity but that it is now 90 not a 60 intake. It would be easy to discount a school that you could now get into.This applies to 4 schools within a couple of miles of us. Those with strong local knowledge and who have been really researching would know this but not many.

I actually think the children in school nursery whose parents are anxious about where they'll go to school for reception example is a very good illustration of why policy cannot be made on a nimby basis.

To those parents, it seems absolutely obvious and fair that their child gets a place at the school they attend for nursery. The parents may well have chosen this nursery because they believe it's the best school for their child. They are likely to believe that the continuity will be best for their child, and so forth. For many of them it may seem deeply unfair that a child who has been in private nursery (for example) can swoop in and get a place at the expense of their child who has been part of the school community for up to 2 years. And, from their perspective, it certainly looks that way.

However, they're not looking at the overall picture and can't see the consequences and problems caused by what might seem like an 'obviously fair' (to them) solution of giving nursery class children priority over others. Lots of school admission issues are exactly like this. Obviously (as we've seen in this thread) the summer born campaign is, but so are issues like faith schools, sibling priority, how to measure distance from schools and just about anything else you can think of with school admissions.

Of course individual parents are going to want the best for their children, but that applies to just about all parents and all children. Just because something seems like the perfect solution for one group does not mean it's a good idea, not least because it can sometimes make things worse for others (and usually others who are not in a position to make as much noise or speak to the right people as you).

It's a bit of a nightmare but, as Tiggy has pointed out, the issues are magnified when the system has too little space (or, in the case of summer born children, the provision is not always appropriate). Out of catchment siblings and faith schools really don't matter as much when it doesn't affect where you can send your child to school. It matters an enormous amount when all the schools near you are faith schools and your child is bottom of the list everywhere. Your child being the youngest or oldest in the year doesn't matter much when the provision is appropriate for all 4 and 5 year olds; it may matter a great deal if you have no choice and are allocated a school that gives homework and expects reception to be a lot like Y1.

I would agree that the biggest issue is lack of slack in the system. It is what creates most of the other issues.

For example, the whole sibling thing. I grew up in a medium sized town with about 4 or 5 primary schools. If parents moved house to the opposite side of town, often the children would move schools too. Today, once you have got your child a school place, you have to hang onto it. The idea of having a rule that you would lose sibling priority if you moved over X distance away would be a nightmare for some families because of the lack then of a viable option to get their children attending the same school. You couldn't simply apply for the school nearest your new house and then move the older sibling to match, because there probably wouldn't be a place in Y2/Y3 whatever. So, if you don't get sibling priority at your original school, you're stuffed.

Or the faith thing. Yes, there have always been grumbles. I have family whose kids are in their early 20s who went to the local Catholic school. People moaned then that the Catholics got a 'better' school (even then it was almost entirely faith families). But now, if you have a couple of faith schools near you and aren't of that faith, you may not stand a realistic chance of getting into any local school for your child.

A separate issue which I don't think has been mentioned, but I do think is quite important, is the degree to which pressure on places is meaning you need a fair degree of both local knowledge and to be able to understand fairly sophisticated data to fill in your form correctly. Round by me is a mess of bulge classes. Looking at admission distances for previous years you could easily think "oh, we should be fine for X", not knowing that X took a bulge class two years ago and they will only have 15 non-sibling places. Looking at where neighbours kids go doesn't tell you much any more.

Ionone I think anyone who followed the thread from the beginning would agree that the faith school issue is a hot topic. It certainly completely throws the admissions round near me. 2 out of 3 of our local schools are Christian faith with baptism / church attendance criteria.

I thinks its realistic that only 30% of UK call themselves religious as this will include a large number of non CoE or RC people. But not when they fill their school application in, then they find god...

I do think it would be a lot easier if all schools at least with one LA had the same criteria - its a nightmare when you have every school with its own sub set of rules to negotiate