Genuine, naive question - schools' postcode lottery

[namechange0123]

I hope not to offend anyone with this, it's just something I have been wondering for a long time.

I come from mainland Europe, lived in England for 7 years now and loved it enough to get my citizenship, but this is something I can't really get my head around.

Our school system is completely independent on where families live - for primary, people register to their DCs absolutely everywhere, sometimes tenths of miles away if that means being closer to their workplace (which IMO makes enough sense). For secondary, choice is strongly dependent on the subject (more focused on humanities, sciences or technical/vocational), but again, where two similar schools exist, choice is completely free.

The results is that all schools are equally mixed, there are no schools with stellar results due to rich, heavy tutoring, over involved parents and no working class ghettos.

I'm genuinely (please, please trust my naivety) wondering why England insists on perpetuating this extremely classist system of good and bad areas with associated house prices, grammar system with expensive tutoring for the 11+ which not always then reflects true ability (but why also select on ability at such a young age? I know several people who were awful in school and thrived at uni!) , a system that ultimately kills social mobility.

There's surely something I'm missing as I really can't understand. Can someone explain?

The result in your country is that all schools are equally mixed because your country probably doesn't have pockets of extreme poverty.

Nobody wants their child to go to certain schools in the UK because they're in the middle of rough housing estates and are attended by children who are sometimes growing up in extreme deprivation.

There are school near me that very few would choose to go to. In fact I know of a few people who were allocated a particular school and refused it!
Public transport isn't great here either so people attending schools nearby makes it easier to get there. I tried to get my son home from school via bus a few weeks ago and the usual 30 min school run took me 2 hours!

I think just you’re seeing the English school system from one tiny pocket of where you now live.

Near me there aren’t any grammar schools other than fee paying schools so there isn’t any heavy tutoring or obvious divide.

You can only apply for primary schools within a certain area but for me that encompasses 3 villages with about 5 different options and there are 3 large secondary schools to choose from (covering a good chunk of the county) but also with a pretty wide catchment area so will have a mix of socio economic backgrounds attending.

The grammar school system only still exists in a few areas of England - not sure about the rest of the UK. It’s not really representative of English education as s whole. Also, not everyone has more than one school to choose from. We live rurally; although we could have applied to a primary school in a different village, they all feed into one high school. There are no alternative high schools that are practical to travel to.

So OP, how do they allocate school places where you are from? If more people want a place than there are places in the school, then what happens?

The thing is that in the UK you can put whichever school you like as first choice - one near your work, or whatever. But most schools are over subscribed (maybe this isn't the case in your country?), so there has to be a way of narrowing down the number of applicants to the number that the school can accept - and distance away seems like a reasonable criteria, yes? Then a school develops a reputation for being good (or bad) so you have to live close by to get a place. Then people start moving closer to the school to get a place, and house prices rise in that area - which makes the school even better, because the type of family who will move to a particular area and pay more because of the local school in mind is probably one which will engage with the school, encourage their child to do homework etc. And good teachers choose to teach there too. So it becomes a virtuous circle.

If there wasn't such a pressure on the number of school places, this wouldn't happen. Also, I don't think that publishing league tables with schools' results helps either.

Are you sure you aren't seeing your local school system through slightly rose coloured glasses. If you can choose any school, presumably some get oversubscribed? Still likely a lot better than here, but I don't know any other country without its own pressures.

Where we live there also aren't any grammar schools. The issue is not catchments, it's the government falling to provide enough funding for new places despite large increases in pupil numbers, and then cutting funding for the places that do exist.

My point is, if everybody could freely move everywhere among equally valid, there would be almost no oversubscription. Where it happens, they just add extra classrooms and hire new teachers. It never happens in such amount that they run out of space. Ok, yes, on of the factors is that all teachers are formally hired by the dep. of Education and then assigned to schools who need them, so the funding problem is also less prevalent.

Btw: i am reporting what I read here in MN, not what happens in my tiny village. In fact, I'm in NW with no grammars around. But let's go back to primary for one moment. I have two "good" schools in my catchment and live in what is considered a fairly nice area (not posh, but safe and not rough). 8 minutes drive away there is a "rough" area with very low house prices and "bad" schools. It wouldn't be a problem however, I guess, for people there to drive over here, nor would be vice versa. If there was no catchment requirements and no league results, people would just redistribute. Or not?

But sorry, it's my problem - at 37, I still can't understand either why human nature has to be bad enough to fail every attempt at full equality.

Sorry for typos and grammar!

But people in the “rough” as you put it are most likely poorer so less like likely to have a car to drive their kids to the other school???

Sorry OP I just can’t believe that in your home country people pick schools mainly on convinence to get there.
You make it sound like education utopia where all areas and schools are created equal so parents just pick which ever one suits them in terms of subject focus or how to get there.
And if everyone picks the same one, well no bother, they just bolt on a new building and carry on.

But let's go back to primary for one moment. I have two "good" schools in my catchment and live in what is considered a fairly nice area (not posh, but safe and not rough). 8 minutes drive away there is a "rough" area with very low house prices and "bad" schools. It wouldn't be a problem however, I guess, for people there to drive over here, nor would be vice versa

Why would people drive from the nice area to send their child to a school with children from potentially troubled backgrounds?

People wouldn’t just redistribute, a point well illustrated by the language scattered throughout your post: rough, working class ghetto, really? And then you wonder why people might not choose to send their kids to schools in those areas whilst perpetuating classist stereotypes?
I live somewhere some people would (and have on here) used those words to describe and although some people are struggling whether in work or not thanks to years of austerity, it isn’t a slum. (Although I grew up in a now gentrified part of central London in the ‘90’s so maybe my standards are low.) People here work their arses off for their families, it’s just that often those jobs are not valued by society ie caring, retail, etc.

The fact is: schools are critically underfunded, the government have farmed out schools to multi academy trusts who care about their profit more than educating children. Academy schools were a Labour policy.

Not all grammar tutoring is equal either. In my area it is essential to prepare for the test, which is nothing like they’ve done in school and relies heavily on Y6 maths, sat two weeks into Y6. Although it doesn’t have to be a lot of prep (my son did 30 hours at the very most, over the six months before the test) studying for it would - and does - mean able children miss out on places, at least in part because children from private schools prepare for two or three years beforehand and drive standards up.
I must admit, I was wondering if we’d done the right thing because I do not agree with the system at all - but I live here, and so chose to work within it for the benefit of my child. Good thing really because it’s a bulge year and even the inadequate schools are fullly allocated.

I think it’s an interesting point of comparison OP. (My Russian DH reacted with equal horror when I explained the English system.)

I agree with PP re wealth disparity, and I also think the English class system is at play here in quite nuanced ways, both from the point of view of politicians considering potential academic reform, and from the parents as service users.

@Mimisunshine well, believe it or not that's that it was for me. My family lived in a peripheral quarter and went to a primary in the city centre 10 km away because that's where my mum's office was.

And I attended the only secondary focuse on the humanities in a 20 miles radius, again located in the city centre's main square.

@Henny because in the poorer area there are factories, and some people living in other areas might work there and find it more convenient, if the school was good enough. True that poorer people might not have cars etc to do vice versa, but a decent bus service would solve it.

But I just raise white flag. Too much of an idealist to understand the world even as an adult.

you're making shit up now OP! "people might come from the nice area to work in the factories in the poor area"

What? That's just something you've made up! And most people who can buy in nicer areas don't work in factories!

@essential I will also do my best (within my financial means) for my DS when the time comes, however I fully disagree with this system.

Yes, underfunding is a critical factor, no question. But this classist mindset is too radicated IMO.

Maybe I should consider f* back off to my home country as someone would say. It's a shame as I really like this culture otherwise and I'm doing my best to contribute.

Interesting to read the bit about how teachers are assigned to schools by the department of education. There would be an outcry if that happened because in the UK we believe you should be able to choose where you work.

My friend lives in Germany (the bit that used to be East Germany) and works as a teacher. She hated teaching but was not allowed to give up her job and train as a midwife (because there was a shortage of teachers in the area). In the UK we'd be horrified by this level of state involvement in the individual's choice.

@henny there is no way me or you can know that. It was a made up example. And people's circumstances in life might change too.

Also, it’s not just about academy schools, grammar schools or just education at all.

The government have subsidised businesses via tax credits to the detriment of wages particularly at the lower end; the NHS, social services and other support agencies have had their funding cut and so people who were struggling before are on their knees now.
The government again chose to subsidise builders and the housing market for the benefit of the middle class with Help to Buy instead of using that money to build social housing that is desperately needed (and continue to pay out housing benefit to private landlords too, ensuring people can’t save for a deposit or even afford a home due to extortionate rents.

All that has contributed to the current polarised society we have and it is only getting worse the longer the underfunding continues.

Agree @heartshaped

Namechange0123 I do see what you are saying - I wish we had a more equitable society too but sadly outside of some large cities I don’t think it will happen anytime soon. I mentioned on a thread in the education section a while ago, about improving secondary schools via a lottery within each city or county, with transport provided so it was truly a one tier system but I don’t think people here would ever vote for it.

I would within an eyelid @heartshaped

So sad.

The thing is OP, however much of s bleeding/heart librrral someone is, very few will put their morals in action where their children’s education is concerned. People who can afford to live in areas that feed food schools will do. Supply and demand rill increase the value of property in these areas.

But I just raise white flag. Too much of an idealist to understand the world even as an adult

Too much faux naïveté.
Why would people travel from the nice areas to the ‘rough’ area with poor schools? It wouldn’t happen. And the people in the rough areas are less likely to have the means to travel to the schools in other areas.

Again: but why rough areas should have bad schools if attended by all sorts and with decent teachers?

You don't know me so can't know if my naivety is false or not. Why should I open a topic just to fake stupidity, God knows.