AIBU to think the English school system is bonkers and needs a complete overhaul?

[coffeeisnectar]

Just that really.

I used to live in Scotland which has a fabulous system where every child is offered a place in the closest school. You can apply to a different school but you will only be offered a place if you have a valid reason and they have places after all catchment children have been admitted.

You don't need to apply for a school, you just get a letter saying your child has a place and that's it. As a consequence 90% of kids can walk to school, the kids walk with local kids and there are no parents stressing because they have to ferry their kids 6 miles each day.

Surely this would be a much better system! What am I missing? Why isn't this in place?

Shadowline yes, I realise that.

The situation you describe is a planning issue more than anything else - putting an obligation on the local council to consider and provide for school places would solve that issue. Here, where new estates are built, new classes are provided; there's no way around it. Of course not all children can attend a very local school especially in more rural areas, but they do know at least that they will get a place in catchment (and that dedicated school transport will be provided if necessary).

The situation in London is more complex due to lack of space - I've lived in Islington, for eg, so I know how crowded parts of it are - but ultimately if all children do end up getting a primary place, the problem isn't how many places in total, but how they are allocated. Too much choice, and too many ways for schools to get out of admitting children they don't want to admit, is the underlying problem.

And spartans I'm not talking about children going to school in a broader local area except in cities like London where there may be several schools per square mile.

It should not be acceptable, except in very rural areas where there is no alternative, for primary children to be allocated schools 15 miles from their homes.

You don't need to apply for a school, you just get a letter saying your child has a place and that's it.

No thanks. Children are not the State's property to be allocated without reference to the parents whose family they are.

US - system - you choose where to live based on the schools. Wealthier school districts have better schools. This does encourage people to use "public schools" even when they are quite well off, but then they are paying for them through their local taxes.

Scottish system - used to be very good. But I've heard lots of issues when parents have problems, and the local system "gangs up" on them, if they complain. Also some areas are not providing enough hours of school (4 day weeks?), and in the cities finding enough places is difficult.

England, especially London and SE (maybe East too), have had a massive and pretty sudden population increase. The schools have expanded to their maximium (which includes adding temporary classrooms), and it is still a struggle to find enough places. This is also happening in areas where there is high population density so "spare land" is pretty quickly used to provide housing.
Just making people go to their "nearest school" would not solve the problems.

Oh and to add to tiggytapes summation of London - most people do get a place eventually BUT some places are freed up because some parents don't get a place so sacrifice a lot to fund a private school place. These parents aren't necessarily buying "privilege" but by funding their own children's education are freeing some places for others.

misti I agree it shouldn't happen. But the council approves new estates without worry about how far the kids have to travel. As long as there are enough spaces in the LA as a whole.

They don't take things into consideration like families having to go work after the school run or getting another child to another school.

we were in this situation, but luckily we won on appeal. We had no way of getting ds to school and dd.

spartans well, it strikes me that this problem could be easily resolved with small changes to planning law and local authority obligations.

tiggytape firstly I don't consider it a particular issue having wide enough secondary catchments to require a 5 mile journey (easy enough in London), although it should be possible in more densely populated areas to have smaller catchments. Our catchment senior high school is 20km from our house (the catchment junior high, that my son attends, is 100 metres from our front door, and the primary about 800m) - but we are not in a densely populated area.

Secondly the bulge class argument doesn't negate the fact that enough places ARE found for all children. In fact it shows that the system can work properly and that places can be created where they are needed. The problem seems to be that there is no obligation to open bulge classes.

I do find this an interesting example of group think - it only takes a few minutes to find examples of other countries which resolve this issue in much more efficient ways - yet everyone in England seems to be locked into thinkng that there is only one way of doing it. I find it genuinely puzzling.

misti yes it could, easier said than done. We are part of a group trying to get the council to listen to the problem. They don't see a problem. As long as there are enough places for children to go to school, they are ok with it.

The number of appeals has gone up every year for the last 5 years. The appeals for our school were held over the course of 4 days because they were so many. Most based on not being able to get kids to the allocated school, which were unsuccessful for the most part. Hopefully with the campaign and them getting fed up with all the appeals, they will see the issue.

Just because that is the situation doesn't mean I, or other parents are locked into one way of doing it. We are trying to change it.

From what most people have said on this thread, they aren't happy with how it works. They just don't believe the answer is to simply make a rule that all kids go to their local school and that lots of things need to change before that.

Most people want their kids to go to a local school. If all schools performed well and there were plenty of places. Neither of these things are true at the moment. That needs changing first.

No one is arguing that it's easy - the OP said that the current system is bonkers (which it is) but just because a system is dysfunctional doesn't mean there is an easy way to put it right.

Outside of the most crowded areas, it's a relatively trivial problem to solve - it would be more complex in areas like London where school building is objectively problematic. However, the idea that the UK is a unique case due to population density is simply false.

Our very much sought after schools in our village, prioritise staff children, not really fair as its well over subscribed, why should a local child have to be driven to school or separated for their nursery school friends.
Our catchment was 0.4 miles this year

I live in Germany, and where I live (at least locally, I don't know if it is national policy) like the OP, all children have a place at their local school, determined by their address.

But we are very lucky that our local school is a friendly, inclusive place that I am happy for my DC to go to. (I don't know about the academic standard.)

I don't know if there are league tables, or an equivalent of Ofsted reports here. I don't know what you can do if you end up with a school or teacher that doesn't fit your child. Presumably you just have to suck it up.

And it's a system that can only work if there is actually space for everyone at their local school. Our school is normally 2 form entry, but DS is in a big year - they split them up into extra class, and brought in an extra teacher, and fortunately, they had a spare classroom to house them too.

I don't know what they would do if they had lots of extra students, and no room for them - the sort of thing that is likely to happen in a big city. Employing more teachers is great, but you still have to physically fit everyone into the building.

I suppose the only answer is to build more schools in the places where there are shortages. And that's hardly a simple thing to do.

But you need enough places for everyone first, before you can start any ideological overhaul of the system.

The OP is comparing it to Scotland. Which just would not work here at the moment. Which is what most people have said. Yes it would be good to automatically get a place at a local school an be able to apply elsewhere if you wanted. Yes it would be great to have enough places and all the schools to great.

However it's a long road to get to that point and can't just be solved overnight. I said that I though the whole system needs overhauling.

This is not that same as locked in thinking, which is what you have described people as.

Developers building housing estates (or retail developments etc) in England DO have to contribute towards the cost of providing local services through Section 106 allocations

I agree that all children should be able to get a place at their local school.

I believe that faith schools should only be allowed faith-based places in line with the faith-funding received by the school (about 17% for our local faith-based primary).

I believe that all authorities should have special school places for children with complex needs who need specialist support

I believe all schools should be good schools

US - system - you choose where to live based on the schools. Wealthier school districts have better schools. This does encourage people to use "public schools" even when they are quite well off, but then they are paying for them through their local taxes.

This is very true. We live in a very good school district; I don't know anyone who sends their children to private schools. We are fairly lucky in that the tax rates are low, but because there are some very wealthy communities in our district, there is excellent funding for schools, which the whole district benefits from. We have no school age children but we wanted to be in a good school district because there are a lot of other benefits, including good resale value of houses, especially in our more modest neighborhood, which attracts young families.

And it's true that you are told where your children will go to school, but you will know that when you move into the area. And no one thinks of this as the state owning your children.

mummytime The results are better in high income areas here in NJ but I have found the teaching to best in the poorer towns. Where we live qualifies for federal funding as 70% of children in the schools here in town qualify for free breakfast and lunch. The funding pays for extra teachers, an hour extra tuition everyday and the afterschool program is free for those who qualify for free meals. While there are more and more wealthy people here in town because of the short commute to Manhattan we are going to see the results change because we have the time and ability to help our DC complete homework along with other differences that all contribute to children from higher income families doing better academically.

I love that our high school has a vocational and academic stream. College is so expensive and putting these kids in debt at 18 is irresponsible. They can learn a trade first and go to college later with an income to support them. Nearly all state colleges, which are very good here in NJ, have evening classes that enable students to stay employed on a FT basis.

I am glad we have a choice where my children go to school. (Even if there is a shortage of places.) If a child is being bullied to obvilion then there is no need to move house. I feel that market forces of having schools needing to attract and maintain children keeps head teachers on their toes.

There have been lots of complains about scottish schools on mumsnet. I am glad that in England the number of GCSEs or A-levels a child sits is determined by ablity rather than postcode.

It would be really interesting if England, Scotland, Wales and Northen Ireland all had seperate entries for PISA.

Bullying can definitely be a heightened issue when you have a catchment school only system. Anti-bullying programs are very strong where we live, and receive a lot of attention. Bullying gets swift and decisive action.

There are so many sad situations described on MN about bullying and the failure of schools to do anything about it. Often it appears that people are encouraged to change schools to deal with the issue, which arguably can reinforce schools doing little to deal adequately with the bully.

"I feel that market forces of having schools needing to attract and maintain children keeps head teachers on their toes".

In any system of competition there will be 'winners' and 'losers'. That's how markets work.

But where there are 'winning' and 'losing' schools the 'losing' schools will end up disproportionately full of poor and disadvantaged children.

That's how the system works.

Choice benefits educated and middle class families. It creates and perpetuates inequalities.

I agree with you, OP. Unfortunately it's just one of the many things about the schools that needs a good overhaul.

We are in the US at the moment, and agree with other posters that a system where if you live in road A you go to School B works well here. It makes house hunting even more school focused, but otherwise it's much less stressful than the application process in England. The population density here is fairly comparable to major UK cities too, with plenty of school aged children living in apartments.

A couple of key differences and consequences, though:

• there is no maximum class size here, so schools don't get legally full

• class sizes tend to be 18-20 at the start of the year, and 4-8 classes per year, so even having two more children per class in the year is feasible

• local taxes can be hypothecated to school improvement: our council tax equivalent has recently gone up by about £150 a month to pay for one school in the area to be renovated and expanded, in part to cope with a growing population. This was obviously contentious, but went through following a vote of local taxpayers

But surely admissions is only one small part of the school system, and not necessarily the one that I would focus on if I was overhauling it (ie I'd be making all schools excellent, so the angst about DC going to a crap school wasn't there...)

Does anybody know comparable figures? Eg what are the outcomes for fsm children, middle class ones etc between similar areas in Scotland and England? Because I'm thinking perhaps offering even more opportunity to buy yourself into catchment will level out any advantages you'd get from everyone using the local school. It would be interesting to see if any educational benefits were in it, and if so, for which group.