to think that children from low income families should have access to the best schools

[ReallyTired]

some schools have more than their fair share of erm.. Challenging children. Middle class parents can get their children a better peer group by buying an expensive house, praying or going private. Children from low income families are trapped in poor schools as their parents cannot move as easily.

I think that all state schools should prioritise 15% of places for fsm children so that poor children can have a chance of going to the best comprensive. Before I get jumped on most fsm children are NOT problem children. However they are more likely to educated at poor quality school. Children who get excluded should be given a place at the best school possible even if that means going over 30 in the class.

Children from wealthy families suffer less from attending a weak school. Middle class children can help to raise the aspirations of their classmates.

Perhaps private schools should take a few difficult children as a condition of their charitable status.

As we've all said there are lots of factors involved in children's academic success. Parental support is huge and a good teacher is a must. What posters haven't really mentioned is the natural academic ability of a child. This is really important and is usually not under the control of parents, teachers or the child themselves. Pretending that it is controllable brings problems for all - teachers/schools being judged inadequate and most importantly children themselves being made to feel failures. Life is about far more than passing exams. It is concerning that very young children already start judging themselves and feeling failures at the age of 6 because so what tables they are on and not being able to pass phonics tests.

lepetit - i made that point higher up. if this is to really work, then for the sake of the child, there would have to be some form of enforcement. I was amazed a how few parents moved their child to our nearest school for 6th form, which gets better results than our feeder one. I think the main reason was that the kids were used to their school and wanted to be with their friends. And I guess most parents didn't want the grief and arguments i've had over the last year with their kids getting them to do something thats right for their education but not social lifes

Natural academic ability is of course a very important factor, but a lack of academic ability isn't a barrier to a successful life in the same way as a lack of parenting is.

People can have happy, healthy and fulfilling lives without being able to get straight As at GCSE.

I was amazed a how few parents moved their child to our nearest school for 6th form, which gets better results than our feeder one

Perhaps this is a sign that I am one of those "working class " parents who don't prioritise education but with one exception my children just go to the local school. Perhaps somewhere else they could be better results but I believe in supporting the local school.

What posters haven't really mentioned is the natural academic ability of a child

I suspect that work ethic plays as much of a role as natural ability - for many people.
I am distinctly average but left school with top results and went to the kind of university that MNers seem to aspire to. Not that bright but I worked very hard. Have also been successful in two careers despite not being naturally gifted at either by doing the right thing at the right time.

Coolas that's what I meant about KS2 SATS - they are 'known' to be falsely high and unreliable. Again it just shows you that the data is not reliable... You could argue GCSEs are unreliable for the same reason plus is it measuring consolidated knowledge? Probably not...

Community profiles are found on county and borough websites plus observatory / analysis websites. Poverty.org do some and UNICEF give examples of the specific indicators needed for child poverty in the link above. however, even just the bog-standard county and borough ones give you a good overview of the area.
Personally, I write my own using datasets OR dependant on what it's for I would do health needs assessment. For a school probably would do a health needs assessment as per healthy school toolkit (health is used in it broadest definition here)

there are also multidimensional measures of child poverty around but there is not, as yet, an agreed one in the UK (as far as I know) though work is being done.

However, there are some around and they make for interesting reading. Where I live rural poverty is a big issue but is hugely under recognised because of the income brackets involved. Rural poverty, again considers not the income but access to services / health care and age / health of the population and it shows that your smallest village with your highest earners may be the 'poorest'

It is not swopping kids over, but ensuring that each school has a reasonable social mix and that either school is completely swamped with challenging/ SEN children."

So are we talking about 'naughty' children or children with special educational needs? A child with sen and a statement can already be refused a place in a school if there are too many other children with statements already in the class they would go into.

It is morally wrong for a parent to wish its child in a class with disruptive children who stop learning and awful that schools might be obliged not to remove such children from the classes they disrupt.

Defo think that parental input is the most important factor.

The most successful pupils have parents who show interest in their childrens studies; irrespective of income.
The local grammars in my part of Kent have many children from West African and Asian backgrounds who encourage their dcs to do well at school . Some are wealthy , others are not. However , they place such an importance on education that they are prepared to pay for tutors etc.

Zazzie
Lots of Sen is diagnosed in the early years of schooling. I feel that extreme disruptive behaviour is a type of Sen. Children usually misbehave for a reason other than poor parenting. Some schools are swamped by number of children who arrive with undiagnosed Sen. It doesn't help that health visitors no longer do development checks.

As unpalatable as it might seem to the politically correct, certain social classes have more than their fair share of challenging children. By challenging children I mean both obvious special needs and undiagnosed issues.

Life has a certain amount of random lucky. Even someone from a well off middle class professional background can fall on hard times. Having schools where gaining an education is next to impossible for a well behaved child is not acceptable. Sometimes there are factors that are not the teachers fault.

Saying that the children with special needs should be spread out so as not to disrupt the education of the well behaved children is not the same thing as saying more children from poorer backgrounds should be able to go to good schools.
If children have sen of any sort, they need the right provision. Properly trained staff. A statement/ECHP/ Iep that is accurate and meets their needs. And the school and local authority to actually provide what is on it.
Merely shipping them about won't do that. My son has sen and challenging behaviour and just moving him to a different 'better' school would never have helped him.

WooWooOwl, I agree totally with what you said.

"Working class" parents can't pray?? Get where you're coming from, Op, but a few rather sweeping generalisations there. Agree, it's not a level playing field but motivated parents come from all classes.