To think secular groups should be allowed to object to faith school admissions?

[RockUnit]

The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, wants to ban organisations from objecting to faith school admission procedures, to “stop vexatious complaints against faith schools by secularist campaign groups”.

link here

According to the article linked to above, the government will carry out a public consultation on the proposed changes.

It depends how you apply distance as a criterion. If "living close by" only bumps you up the priority order at your closest (or catchment) school then that's not unreasonable.

Ultimately middle class parents with money to spend will find ways round the rules whatever you do (and I include myself in that group, it's not a criticism of indivuduals, but of a system where the disparities between schools are too great).

Distance criteria always skew the housing market and result long term in highly polarized schools.

I wish the CoE school my children went to had practiced more discrimination. Because the knives in class, the children going bezerk and throwing scissors and chairs at their classmates, might have not have been there if it had. It amuses me no end to hear what a privileged primary school education they had at their church school.

Oh, and the little boy who rubbed his penis against my daughter.

Discriminatory, my arse.

Distance criteria always skew the housing market and result long term in highly polarized schools.

yup, it's imperfect. Suggestions on improving the distance criteria will be greatly received (here at least).

but religious selection doesn't fix this. it just throws a new loophole into the mix. and amongst the christians who satisfy the religious criterion, you still get a distance game.

Catchment area or lottery seem good to me.

Segmentation by cartography is fair.

I haven't heard of this - what is it?

Lottery is only great if you are hoping for a chance your DC might get in to a school that is relative,y far away.

It's utterly pants if you want them to go to the local one.

And it means the advice common on the Education threads here ('use all your choices, but make sure you include the nearest thing you've got to a sure thing as better a school you dislike that's convenient to one you dislike as much by but is in the arse end of nowhere') becomes redundant, as no-one would have a sure thing. I don't think that's a good thing in a system that allows for preference.

You could of course remove parental preference, and just allocate children to schools.

"it just throws a new loophole into the mix"

It's not a new loophole. Church schooling preceded state schooling by several centuries and VA schools have always run their own admissions.

Vexatious complaints are a part of life, not just about school admissions. Ask any shop worker, anyone working in a government department. Stopping them from groups will only mean that individuals will complain instead.

There should be grounds for complaints, if a school's admissions policy is not followed properly, if it is unworkable, or if it requires evidence that cannot be supported. Personally I don't like the people who 'rediscover' their faith so as to get their child into what is considered a good school (and is a faith school), and then lapse about two or three months after the child starts at the school, or even sooner. Impossible to prove, but to me it is akin to obtaining something by deception, and could not be a grounds for complaint.

I'm not in the uk. Could someone explain the admissions system to me? I see friends' FB posts at certain times of the year, with people celebrating their admission or sad to be allocated a school 45 minutes drive away. What gives? It sounds bizarre.

There are not enough years left in my life to start explaining that. Let's say it depends on county to county and each school has its own code.

The trouble with distance criteria is that if you live in a village 10 miles from a town with 6 schools, you are going to be bottom of the list for each and every one.

apostrophe

This is about England only.

School places (in the main admissions rounds) are allocated by the LA on behalf of all the admissions authorities (LA itself, or VA and academy/free schools themselves). Parents are asked to express their preferences when they apply for a place. Each admissions authority receives a list of applicants (ie parents who have listed them as one of their preferences), and they then rank them according to how well they fit the admissions criteria of that school. The lists are returned to the LA, who then turn the ranked lists into a single offer for each applicant at the highest-preference school they qualify for. If they qualify for none, then the LA will offer the closest school with a vacancy.

Some schools have been on their sites for centuries, and are no longer where people actually live. Some parts of the country have population densities among the highest in the world. These lead to uneven pressure on school places (which is why comparisons on this issue cannot really be made at national level). So in cities in particular it is possible to fall into a black hole where you qualify for none of your nearest schools. And of course, how the school performs in league tables and local reputation will also be a factor on how many apply where.

All schools have over-subscription criteria (ie how they sort out who gets an offer if there are more applicants than places). Permissible criteria are governed by the Admissions Code (which has the force of law).

Does that make it any clearer?

The trouble with distance criteria is that if you live in a village 10 miles from a town with 6 schools, you are going to be bottom of the list for each and every one.

I don't know why these threads on faith schools always have the introduction of the distance criteria. They are different problems.

I think it is because the debate always follows the same road- if faith criteria are unfair, what,if anything, is fairer

if faith criteria are unfair, what,if anything, is fairer

distance is fairer. it's not perfect, but it's fairer.

Thanks meditrina.
It sounds very complicated.

When I live, every address falls in the zone of one school (occasionally two, a single sex and a co-ed), entry to one of which is guaranteed.

"I don't know why these threads on faith schools always have the introduction of the distance criteria. They are different problems."

My theory is because these problems apply in different measure in different places, and of course in many places neither is problematic. Presenting faith criteria as somehow invariably a problem simply doesn't chime with individuals' experience of what the problems are. And distance, just after an admissions round where some people are not getting any of their choices, and are missing the schools they want by a matter of metres is very much on people's minds.

Also, look at the thread about the MNetters desperate to avoid the faith school she was allocated (nearest school with space) to give the lie to the assertion that all are desirable.

Or consider our locale, where the two schools people are desperate to get in to are both converter academies which use LEA community criteria, and around which the house price has rocketed to about 1/3 more than streets at the iffy edge of the distance offers reach (the CofE school just up the hill being groaned at). And their FSM proportion isn't typical of their borough.

Or the basics of the demographics, which show time and time again that also though there are some Christian faith schools which are leafy/affluent, they are more likely than the national norm to have schools with high levels of pupils with markers for deprivation. Especially as Catholic schools are some of the most diverse in the country; they have always been fairly 'international' in cities and have become very much so again with newly arrived migrants (parents find out a lot about how English systems from their church community).

So I think people want to show that it's not as clear cut as sometimes portrayed. And that's before you start into the areas of the law on property ownership.

"Or the basics of the demographics, which show time and time again that also though there are some Christian faith schools which are leafy/affluent, they are more likely than the national norm to have schools with high levels of pupils with markers for deprivation."

Please could you link to data that shows that oversubscribed faith schools have higher levels of pupils with markers for deprivation than other school in similar areas.

OK. Ccosses fingers on finding it again, but yes it definitely exists. I'm afraid IIRC it doesn't show level of oversubscription. Then again oversubscribed community schools usually do not have typical level of markers of deprivation either. So again, terms of the debate matter.

Of course the utility of all comparative data is a bit limited because the number of faith schools is large enough to be formative of the norm.

You do sound a bit sceptical though. Do you have data showing something different? In which case, could you link that?

Schools stats - annual census includes onwards links if required.

One further confounder I forgot to mention is whether, in using the data you include PRUs and special schools. Because if you average them in to 'community' figures it changes the apparent baseline, as they are (typically) at about 30-40% whereas the national figure is around 16-18% (and falling).

It's also harder to make year on year comparisons since the rollout of UFSM.

Ok. To start with, here is some Government data about all schools completing faith and non faith. It shows that faith schools overall have slightly lower levels or children with deprivation markers and low ability, and slightly higher exam results. This is all schools, so gives the lie to the "faith schools are better because faith" line. More stats to follow after the school run.
Summary of GCSE results by religious character of school, 2013
Mainstream comprehensive schools in England
Faith Non-faith All
Pupil intake
Average Key Stage 2
points score 28.0
% of pupils by prior attainment band
Low 13% Medium 53% High 34%
% of pupils eligble for free
school meals or looked after
by their local authority 26%
% of pupils with a statement of
SEN or at School Action Plus 8%
27.6 27.7
16% 15% 54% 54% 30% 30%
28% 27% 8% 8%
inc. English and Maths 7% 7% 57% 58% 94% 94% 60% 60%
Attainment and progress measures
% of pupils achieving 5+ grades A*-C Low attainers
Medium attainers
Higher attainers
All
or equivalent 9%
60% 95% 64%
% of pupils making at least the expected progress between KS2 and KS4 English 73% 70% 71% Maths 74% 70% 71%

Does that include PRUs?

Also, noting that it's from 2013, did you get it from The Guardian?

Sorry- didn't copy properly

source

Another big confounder: funding

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35726883