Primary school admissions - MNHQ needs your thoughts!

The whole thing just irritates me greatly - all the time and worry everyone in crowded areas is now having to put in, posting on threads, lobbying MPs, wondering whether to take a punt on brand new free schools, thinking about moving house, saving up for a plan B, just to sort out something taxes are supposed to pay for!

But the admission policy for faith schools make it unfair because if you don't have the faith then your child misses out. It's wrong.

Now like I said before I'm not suggesting people feign religion or get their child baptised just to secure a place at a good school. But if it came to choosing from a failing school on your doorstep or a faith school that still had places available for non faith children, which would you chose? I'm of the faith anyway so it doesn't matter but I can honestly say hand on heart if I weren't Catholic I would still opt for a better Catholic school (if a place were available) that would offer my children better opportunities and prospects over a non faith school that was failing.

Tiggy - I totally agree with that. I just can't see any slack coming back into the system any time soon. Especially with what you've just written about opening new schools. So the issue of faith schools is going to continue to be incredibly fraught.

I totally agree with the poster who said that LA's school be required to work with developers so that new housing = new school places

tiggytape - no problem. I wasn't tryiny to say that everyone shared my experience but try to illustrate that we all live in the UK and have had such massively difference experiences. No one round here talks about it because it's just not an issue and so mumsnet is useful for me to see how people who live in other parts of the UK are affected.

Sorry, when I said the private system was irrelevant I meant that using private school admission hinging on income as an argument for Catholic state school admission to hinge on religion is irrelevant given that the state system is a guaranteed school place for all children and the private is just that, private. Not sure I've worded that particularly well, but you get what I mean! I completely agree about the private system acting as a safety net for the council, my DD ended up going privately because she was offered a place at a failing school miles away, despite her brother being at our local Catholic primary. Having them at two different schools was perfectly doable.

Incidentally, brilliantly expressed upthread ArcherAnnie.

Agree with the unfairness of the system which bars non-believers (or those who don't believe in exactly the same thing) from faith schools.

But for me, what is 'wrong' with faith schools (going back to someone's Q on first page of thread) the answer is - the fact that they teach (what I regard as) a load of nonsense and indoctrination to young, spongy brains before they are able to filter and decide whether they want to accept it all. Divisive too. A form of child abuse, some might argue (ducks for cover).

sheep
I agree. I have two August born DC and would have liked some flexibility as to when they started YR. I think the Scottish system already has this. I think mine would have benefited starting a year later.

The school age population in lots of cities is increasing faster than schools can be built. Assumptions that a block of two-bed flats will only have say 10% with school-age children are out of date. All my local schools have increased in size by 50% or 100% in the last 5 years but every one is oversubscribed. Like most people I applied for my 6 closest schools. Got no.3 which is 25 min to walk, and luckily a good school, but it does grate that half the places at the school round the corner were reserved for people who not only baptised their child but also attended church every fortnight for two years before application. So not only non-Christians but also anyone with caring commitments, shift work, medical problems - loads of families end up excluded. I probably still wouldn't have got in being about 200m away, but it would be less galling.

ChazBrilliant it's 100% around here. There is no chance at all - absolutely none - that you will get into a local Catholic school if you are not Catholic, and if you haven't baptised your baby by 6 months, and so on and so forth.

I am not sure if this is OT, but I would like to see Local Authorities across England letting summer born children start reception at CSA (i.e. the term after the child turns 5) if the parents request it.

CSA in this country is essentially the term after a child turns 5. If I decide to start my 24th August boy at CSA (which is my legal choice), he is likely to be admitted straight into year 1.

I would like more flexibility for parental requests to be permitted, so that a child can start reception at CSA (and not be forced to miss a year and go straight into year 1).

I don't think the private system is irrelevant as round here it is currently acting as a safety valve preventing councils having to take effective action to solve the problem. Not the case everywhere, I know.

sailor, please see my post upthread. It's completely doable to have DCs at different schools, I did it with mine. I'm not saying that siblings shouldn't be allocated the same primary school, but I do think out of catchment older siblings shouldn't guarantee younger siblings a place over in catchment children.

We're not allowed to type "ODFOD" any more, are we?

I absolutely understand why someone would jump through the hoops to get their child into a good - or even non-shit - school. I'd support an individual parent in any activity within the rules.

I absolutely cannot support the system. The use of faith criteria could not be introduced now if they didn't already exist.

Also, we work in education. The system is bonkers & changing job to a boarding school is looking v attractive!

Private schools are a totally different issue imo because the whole point of state education is it's free and everyone can use it. If you can't afford/don't want a private place then you can have a state place, but you can only have certain state places if you aren't of the right religion, which in some areas can be the difference between a local school and a failing one miles away. That I think is where the injustice lies. A state run service for everyone shouldn't discriminate on grounds of religion. The private sector is totally irrelevant.

SweetieXPie
How much funding do you thing the Church puts in? Its max 10% of the capital costs with the State picking up the other 90%. The Church funds none of the running costs, that comes from State. So for 10% of the capital costs the Church gets to control usually at least half of the admissions - Bargain!

We live in a part of London where there is increasing pressure on places, although not critical yet. Something I didn't realise before having to look into this, is that you can't sort out wrap around care until knowing which school DC will attend, and looking at our local admissions, it's impossible to say where in this very large borough that might be come three years' time. It could make our working lives difficult if the school is miles in the wrong direction or has no adequate wrap around care.

We also have the issue other posters have mentioned of several nearby schools being closed to us due to faith-based admissions (we are atheist). Rather than having to make some hasty careers decisions when the time comes we decided we'll have to go private. We are very lucky that's an option, although when I priced up moving within the south east instead, there wasn't much difference and of course no guarantee the new area wouldn't develop the same issue.

Ironically, the only way to be sure of a nearby school with (hopefully) nearby friends for DD is to pay - even though we will have lived at the end of the road from an excellent community school for 15 years by the time DD is 5. But the catchment is now teeny. We can't risk it.

I like the sound of the Scottish system as it would make planning in advance easier. The worst thing at the moment is the uncertainty - councils just don't seem to have a plan other than putting portacabins on playgrounds. We would also like to see a return to local authorities planning and building schools and housing developers being required to provide new school places in proportion to the housing (apparently our council's software assumes 'families don't live in flats' ).

It's not your fault, it is the fault of the system

Ans I can't believe you are comparing it to Sen and medical needs!

Twoplus3 so, you'd be OK with a NHS hospital being built near you with public funds which had a big sign up on the door saying "No Catholics Admitted"? If you needed treatment, you'd have to find a hospital somewhere else, anywhere, that did admit Catholics, but you aren't allowed at that one, even though it's pretty close to you. And you'd be OK with your neighbours saying that there isn't a problem, because after all they get treated at that hospital, and it's all worked out very nicely for them, thank you?

You'd be fine with that? Because that's what is happening with faith schools.

Schools select student on the basis of religion, distance, whether they have medical needs, special educational needs etc etc, that's just the way they do things, it's not always fair but that's life I'm afraid.

Of course siblings of children who still attend the school should be given priority. It is impossible or at least very difficult to leave 2 or more children off at 2 or more schools at exactly the same time. Same goes for picking up again.