...to be so angry and upset by this unfair school admissions policy?

[SchoolFury]

(Have namechanged as this is quite identifiable)

My DD just turned 4 in September, so is due to start Reception next year. Since Jan this year she has been at a preschool (nursery) which is part of a primary school.

It is our nearest school, and the only one for which we are in the 'priority area'. We actually moved to this flat in 2013 in large part because we loved the school so much

It's a non-denominational, community state primary school. We are in a part of London with a lot of faith schools (Jewish, Catholic, CofE) and we are a mixed Jewish/Christian secular family, so faith schools not for us. It's also got an Ofsted '1' (outstanding) in last inspection, though that is less important than the wonderful atmosphere, the sense of community and the fact that my daughter is really thriving in the preschool.

Under normal admissions rules, my daughter would be very likely to get a place there for Reception based on distance - we live less than 0.2 miles from the school. HOWEVER, last year the school decided to take a 'bulge' class, i.e. take 60 pupils in reception instead of 30. They took from a much wider area - up to 0.5 miles from the school - usually the limit is less than 0.3.

This means that siblings of those in the 'bulge' class will get offered places next year ahead of my daughter, and others in her nursery class who live closer, but do not have siblings at the school. I know personally of two families with one child in current reception, with a sibling a year younger, who will therefore get offered places ahead of my daughter even though they live much further away.

I am really distressed by this. The only other nearby school is a failing school (Ofsted rating 3) - not the end of the world, but we are not even in the priority area for it (very near, but wrong side of the road) so we may not even get a place there . And my daughter is so happy in preschool and has lots of good friends and good relationships with the teachers.

If my daughter had been a week older she would have started reception this year and would have got a place for definite. As it is, she almost certainly won't get a place, instead children living much further away will get priority for no reason other than the 'bulge' class taken this year. I have been told there is no chance of them taking another bulge class this year - so what's the point?

AIBU to feel really upset, resentful towards those who have got in this year, and most of all angry with the school for making this decision, which seems really short sighted and unfair on children in subsequent years?

I think there are going to be huge problems with the 2015 intake. It seems to be a big baby boom year yet no new schools have been created.
I live on the catchment line for the most popular school in the area (we still have catchment areas) I live closer to te school than others within the catchment area as it's not a circle andencompasses various villages
Ds1 got in no problem as only 29 people applied. I think about 35 applied in dds year so 5 didn't get a first choice place.
The Playschool in the village normally has about 18-20 children per preschool year. This year they have 35 children and there are 22 siblings. It means you will have to live in the actual village where the school is to even be in with a chance as siblings get priority.
The people living in the 5-6 other catchment villages are not likely to get a place unless they are a sibling.

The fact that faith schools can in theory admit from any faith or none is a technicality in many many areas of the uk. Try and get into our local catholic school without being catholic, even if you live 20 paces away, and they'd laugh you out if the admissions office.

To the point where schools feel absolutely confident in refusing to hand out forms at all

In the normal admissions round you apply for a place through the LA, not directly to the school. The school cannot prevent you from applying.

The only form the school is not handing out is the Supplementary Information Form. The only useful thing to be gained from that form is proving you are Catholic and hence qualify for priority. If you are not Catholic there is no point filling in that form. You don't have to fill in the form to apply.

You originally alleged that your local Catholic schools refuse to admit non-Catholics. That is what I am disputing. Your latest post actually sets out the true situation, which I have already indicated - they have so many Catholic applicants that non-Catholics don't get places (and quite probably some Catholics as well). I accept that the effect is the same but there is a real difference between that and a school refusing to accept non-faith applicants even when they have spaces available.

ArcheryAnnie

at the Mycroft comment!

Actually I don't think we are in as much disagreement as you think we are. These days it is the case that many faith schools have so many faith applicants they have no spaces for non-faith applicants. I am being, perhaps, a little pedantic and pointing out that this isn't quite the same as the school refusing to admit non-faith applicants under any circumstances.

Well, I have been known to lean towards the pedantic myself...

Can I chip in here if I may. Havent read all of the thread but is it fair that if you have chosen to have a large family and get one into an outstanding school you automatically get all of them in and others dont get a look in.

Is that really how it works.

PH47, I'd be interested to see if they actually would shut up shop if only the selection criteria. Given that they still have so much control over the school absent the social engineering of their intake (notably more middle-class/affluent than their surrounding areas), would they really cede one of their bedrocks of community influence and future recruitment?

I know one very religious governor of a faith school who is vociferous in arguing that the school should not prioritise the children of churchgoers at all, because it is the other children that they should be trying to reach with the message of their religion. That seems like a supportable position, although it would no doubt make church schools less 'desirable' to middle-class parents.

If they did pack up their metaphorical toys and go home, I imagine that long-term leases of the land would probably be the preferred scenario, but I would be quite happy to see compulsory purchase of the land going onto the state balance sheet as sustainable and serviceable debt, given the public good arguments.

No worries at all middlings! The entire bloody system is buggered, and it wouldn't be if officials had noticed from 2007 onwards that the birthrate had increase just a little bit, and that we might need more schools and school places across the country from 2012 onwards.

Our Catholic primary can't even admit all the catholics, so it has taken to stamping mass cards for kids ie pre schoolers have to go Mass every week to be in with a better chance of a place. Which to me visits the sins of the parents (non mass attendance) on the children!

I would abolish all faith schools.

how do you know this?

Through being interested in the subject, knowing the history of education in the UK and checking published information. The first church schools were set up well before the government got involved in education.

Also, who maintains the schools? Are they maintained out of public money?

Yes they are paid for out of public money but this is where it gets a little more complicated.

There are several types of church schools:

• voluntary aided (VA) schools
• voluntary controlled (VC) schools
• academies and free schools

VA schools have their running costs met by the local authority. They receive funding per pupil on the same basis as other local schools. They may also receive funding towards any capital costs (new buildings, etc.) but must find 10% of the capital costs themselves. In practise some get additional funding from the church towards running costs and some fund more than 10% of capital costs.

VC schools are fully funded by the local authority on the same basis as other local schools although the land and buildings still belong to the church. The admission criteria for these schools are set by the local authority, not the school. Some local authorities give priority to faith applicants to these schools, others do not. Note that no RC schools are VC.

Academies and free schools are fully funded and receive their funding from the Education Funding Agency (to all intents and purposes, that means they get it direct from the government). There is no requirement for them to provide any funding from other sources but many do. Academies will have converted from VA or VC status so will be using land and buildings belonging to the church. Free schools will have set up from scratch and may have received funding from the government towards the cost of land and buildings.

I'd be interested to see if they actually would shut up shop if only the selection criteria

The Catholic church is refusing to allow any RC free schools to open as they are only allowed to allocate 50% of their places on faith grounds. In Crosby they prevented a Catholic independent school (St Mary's College) from converting to a free school. Even though the school currently selects only on ability and does not give any priority to Catholics, the church was unwilling to accept that as a free school it would only be able to allocate 50% of its places on faith grounds. The Catholic church is clear that they do not want to ever be in the situation of having to admit a non-Catholic ahead of a Catholic. I don't know if this is fuelled in part by the fact Catholics were a persecuted minority in England until relatively recently. But given the strength of feeling I am pretty certain they would choose to take their schools out of the state system or close them down rather than remove the faith criteria.

Archery Pedantic people are nice people . . . aren't we?

Archery, prh knows his stuff on this one, as anyone who's been on any of the other school admissions threads will know.

One of the reasons we have the current mess in England (Scotland manages these things much better, as I understand it) is that when the 1944 Education Act was implemented, there was a lot of wrangling with the CofE and the RC authorities over schools. The Act was massively important as it finally gave all children the right to free secondary education as well as elementary (primary) education. It also made some other reforms.

As I understand it, before then faith schools were technically independent, not under the LEA or whatever the equivalent was at the time. Children could attend free of charge (as if they were state schools) because the running costs were mostly met from council/government grants, topped up by church funds.

This had saved the country a lot of money in the 19th century when it finally became compulsory for children to be in full-time education because the existing CofE and RC schools agreed to take them and local councils only had to set up enough council schools to cover areas where there weren't any schools.

The quid pro quo for the grants was that the faith schools had to meet certain standards to do with curriculum, employing qualified teachers, standard of buildings and so on. They were inspected, just as council schools were.

The dioceses owned the buildings and land, employed the teachers and set the admissions policy (just as they do now). The CofE had lots of schools which usually took all the local children, regardless of denomination, because it was the only school they could go to for geographical reasons. The RC schools would have been for RC children only, and would only have been found in areas with a high RC population.

The original plan when the 1944 Education Act was being drafted was to take all the church schools into the state system by compulsory purchase. The churches refused to go along with this. The compromise hammered out was the creation of voluntary aided and controlled schools as prh47bridge mentions above. This meant the churches could continue to control the schools without too much interference from the council or the government.

(For very similar reasons, lots of fee-paying grammar schools which became state schools were also allowed to become VC or VA schools so they would retain a degree of independence from the council.)

I find this kind of thing fascinating, but in 2014 when a majority of the UK population has no religion it is an anachronism to have so many faith schools discriminating in favour of their adherents.

Owl - I realise that some faith schools do prioritise church attendance but not all do where I am.

A lot of the addresses round here have a CoE school as catchment. They may take account of church attendance but in most cases living in catchment would be a higher priority.

Also, they can't refuse to take a non church goer if they have space.

Off topic slightly but my kids go to a Jewish school and there are lots of non-Jewish kids there about 10-20%. It's also not super religious and they learn about all religions and none. Most faith schools have to take a percentage of pupils that are not of that religion so you might be surprised if you end up sending your child to a faith school about how diverse they actually are.

HIS? PRH is a man??

wanttosqueezeyou, I realise it must be a shock. You may not have had your ankles covered at all times when posting on MN. Never mind, I am sure as a true gent, PRH has covered his eyes.

A shock doesn't begin to cover it Mimsy.

I have liaised with PRH on many occasions and not realised that she was a he.

How does everyone know this but me?

And how am I supposed to redress the long held, mental image I have of PRH as a smart, neat, grey suited woman (nicely accessorised), sharp bob, tapping away at a keyboard?

Its just one of those things, will be a lot of siblings. How irritating.

re: Jewish schools though, your daughter can attend even if you are a mixed faith family (or even have no faith) as most of the jewish schools now just require 8 synagogue attendances over a 6 month period, May to October, only actually have to attend the children's service at our synagogue (so don't have to set foot in the actual service) and don't have to be a member. We have lots of people attending just for school places. I appreciate it might not be ideal, but could you do that as a back up, as the jewish schools tend to be very good. Is it you or your partner who is jewish?

clam so do I, thanks. I was talking from direct experience.

Direct experience (anecdotal evidence) from your own child/children, perhaps. prh has been on countless appeal panels over the years, and advised hundreds of people on school admissions issues.

I always thought PRH was a woman too [faints]. But then I presume most people on here are female unless they explicitly state otherwise. Erroneously I'm sure.

I post a lot on another board which seems to be by default male. Have lost count of the number of people referring to me as 'dude' and 'mate'

Sorry to derail...

Could you be any more patronising, clam? It really smacks of "look, silly woman, you may have experienced this in actual real life, but here's a man with expertise on the issue, so do sit down and listen".