To worry that under Mrs may plans some children will have no school place

[ReallyTired]

In my town there is a huge pressure on school places at primary level. In a few years time secondary schools will have the same problem. I suspect that most comps will become selective to avoid becoming the secondary modern.

It it really fair that the low ablity pupils might be forced to travel long distances to crap schools? Why are low ablity children less deserving of a good school?

This hasn't been thought out.

what I don't get is the attitude or lack of parental involvement (or so it seems on mn) for parents to work towards improving their local or allocated school.

Really? People on MN seem invested, almost to distraction, from what I am reading on MN.

Gone are the times of Swallows and Amazons where giving children freedom to 'find their own feet' is celebrated. We are involved from them being tiny barely conceived dots to adult children! We attend evening after evening of school 'workshops' showing us how to teach support our child in their education. We get embroiled in the politics of the education system and pay for the costs encurred by higher education.

Stop blaming parents for being 'under involved' as a ruse to distract from the disenfranchisement teachers feel in their profession. There is not one time in history, as far as I can see, when parents have not been more involved in their children's education. The threads on here are testimony to this fact.

I wouldn't worry about it OP. I expect phase II of the great tory plan is that the less gifted kids (that'd be the remaining 80%) can leave school at 14 and go and fill the gap in East European labour that Brexit will create. They can pick fruit in summer and work for Sports Direct in the winter months.

noblegiraffe, do you seriously not know how you can use money to get into good comps and block all the 'undesirables'?

Rich families buy houses that are very close to a school, from pensioners, from landlords, from couples who haven't had kids yet, from families whose kids have left school, from the deceased, long term council tenants use right to buy to cash in, houses are knocked down, rebuilt, extended etc, house prices become inflated 'catchment' areas reduce. School become more exclusive, loop is repeated, accelerated and within several years you need to have a million pound mortgage (or lie about renting) to get into a school that originally let anyone within 2km in.

Its happening all over the country.

And if the good school was a grammar they'd still have a chance to take the places anyway but their kids would be forced to prove it and house prices wouldn't be inflated.

DrinkMilk. if your not going to force children to go to the nearest school then you are allowing selection and forcing some children to travel. How do you square that circle?

I think children really should be able to go to the most local school. They live in the community, they should be able to learn with that community and socialise with that community. So what if the privaledged can afford to buy up housing? If they do that they do change the demographic but a also advantage the people who will sel to them. The people who already live in a place would still be able to go to school there.

I believe in inclusive comprehensive education. Learning alongside the people you live alongside. This will prepare people to be able live and work alongside the people they meet in everyday life. As soon as you try to manufacture a different intake for a school then people are unprepared for living in the area they grow up in.

I'm not sure that I aspire for children to live in the area they grew up in. I'd like for them to be prepared to live elsewhere too - whether that's in the UK or not.

But I do aspire for them to be able to find/afford housing where they grew up or later work.

The people who already live in a place would still be able to go to school there. That just isn't the case where people are priced out - when trying to buy or rent their first home or move to a family size home.

maths the house prices become inflated because people want to get into the school, yes?

So why wouldn't that happen if the school was a grammar?

Why would a grammar opening in a deprived area be protected from what you are suggesting?

Rock, I routinely see on mn people applying for schools away from their homes because of some odd rating system. if the local school isn't good enough then why not work with administration to improve it's rating?
Maths, with gentrification occasionally homes that were housing 2 families is indeed bought out and renovated but for single family living, those that can afford that are also more likely to only have one child.
in which case the catchment area expands.

Quack

Of course without selection on academic ability children could go to school where they lived. Their own children might not be able to, if they were priced out of the area but if the education were good then they should be able to compete in the job market.

If you aspire for children to life elsewhere then there really has to be more state infrastructure to deal with providing extra support to small nuclear families away from their original homes. The extended families themselves cannot provide support due to distance when people have to move away. Childcare has to be better to be viable, schools have to be better at wraparound care and pastoral care and there has to be a better safety net for when things go wrong. With a lot of forced geographical movement and increased transience, which is at the whim of job markets, communities lose touch with other and suffer.

I thought the governments job was to educate all it's citizens to a certain basic standard. Certainly not to enable movement elsewhere.

So if you grow up in a depressed costal town, your education should prepare you to live in a depressed costal town?
Education should broaden horizons and offer opportunities. I've taught pupils who would have got to 18 never having visited London if it wasn't for one school trip. The journey was only an hour.

Quack, a 'depressed coastal town' would be one of the places most ripe for improvement. Huge opportunities, huge potential, exists in such places, if people know how to utilise those attributes the area has to offer. What does not help people realise this type of potential is a transient population.

Why should existing residents not take advantage of what already exists in their local area instead of already privaledged people?

You talk about London as if it were paved in gold. So what if people do not visit? How many people visit the 'depressed coastal areas' you talk of? What are they missing out on?

My point isn't that people should move away, but that education should broaden horizons in every sense of the phrase. Just learning to live in the area you grew up in isn't enough. While you might see potential in those coastal towns with disproportionately high numbers of inadequate schools, that isn't the reality that is lived by many people in them.

I don't think that London is paved in gold and didn't suggest that. But it is a world class city and for 18 year olds only an hour away not to have been there is disappointing and potentially limiting to them. I equally think that children growing up in London benefit from experiencing the countryside and sea. Knowing about the wider world around you is part of education.

Being able to go to a good inclusive comprehensive local school does not prevent any 'broadening of horizons'. What it means is less travelling time and being able to socialise more easily with schoolmates.

Comprehensive schools can still undergoe the same inspections Grammar schools do. Results are still published. They don't only reach how to live in a local area, that is not my point. My point is that if you live as part of a local community, why should you not be educated within that community?

Teach not reach. Typo.

I entirely support the model of children being educated in their local comprehensive, I am not in favour of grammar schools at all.

I just completely disagree with your assertion that, "As soon as you try to manufacture a different intake for a school then people are unprepared for living in the area they grow up in." Comprehensive schools can have very different intakes already, but if they are only preparing pupils to live in the area that they grow up in then they are failing in part of their remit. It's just a terrible reason to want to keep the status quo including the economic selection according to property prices.

Quack, you have misunderstood the point I was making. Being well prepared for living and working in the local area, through being directly involved in and having a first hand knowledge of the issues that affect the local community, does not have to mean a person is necessarily less prepared for living and working elsewhere.

However being able to be involved with the local community, because schooling is geographically in the midst of that community, has advantages. Students can have comparitively more opportunity to learn how to give and receive community support than if the school was geographically 'cut off' from the community they live in. Equally teachers having an in depth, first hand, knowledge of the issues that affect the communities, that the students come from, will undoubtedly help them tailor the teaching to take account of this.

These are advantages that can help students have more rounded educational experiences. Which widens horizons and leaves them better prepared for life anywhere including continuing to live where they live now, or not.

Selective education, on the other hand, can isolate people from the communities they live in, if a sector of children are required to travel for their schooling.This results in less community support being able to reach them and in turn they are less likely to return community support. The result is communities become fragmented.

house prices become inflated because people want to get into the school,
So why wouldn't that happen if the school was a grammar?

Because if you select by academic results rather than distance you don't need to live close to school to get into it.

Out2pasture, 'gentrification', not sure what that means. Are you suggesting rich families have less children so catchment distances would increase around selective comprehensives? Then why is the OPPOSITE happening?

Forcing children to go to their local school is a nice idea. It would worry me that it would create a massive social and educational divide and destroy any social mobility.

mathsmum, why do you worry that children being educated at a local inclusive comprehensive school would "create a massive social and educational divide and destroy any social mobility,"?

Surely there would be less divides in the community if everybody (most) from one geographical area were educated together?

Educating this way means there are greater opportunities for students to give to and receive support from the community. This in turn means there is greater understanding and integration between different sectors of the community, be there differences in wealth, academic ability or social 'class'.

If all the academically able students are sent out of an area to be schooled elsewhere, meaning they are isolated away from the community where they live, this effectively can mean there is a 'brain drain' from that community. It sends a message that success means leaving behind the community these students have grown up amongst. It devalues that community.

If all the students not reaching a certain academic criteria have to be schooled outside the community, where they live, it sends a message that they somehow 'don't belong' in their own community either. The community then becomes less inclusive and experienced in terms of mixing with anyone not reaching a certain academic criteria.

Both scenarios result in the community becoming divided and fragmented. How does this aid social mobility?

Gentrification is a long slow process and wealthier families statistically have fewer children, slightly later in life and breastfeed longer (tons of data available).
If a child goes to a local school the parents are more likely to engage.
Depressed communities beg for rebranding and revitalization it isn't by sending the children away that this happens.

I would never have made it through 11 plus, have no qualifications (dyslexia, I was never distruptive but it did take a long time for me to grasp things), and yet am now in a more high profile (and better paying) job than anyone I went to school with. Ability (long term) isn't just about how well you perform academically/exam results, a big part is about how hard you work and how well you can problem solve. The 'low ability' kids who have a great work ethic will always do better in life when they grow up than lazy 'high ability' kids- that's a fact.

I don't think you can really have the argument both ways - that schools teach children to live in the area they grew up in and that is an advantage, particularly as teachers can tailor their approach to the communities they work in. But then to deny that it is an advantage for teachers to be able to tailor their approach to the selective intake they have whether at grammar school or a socially selective school through other means.

I agree that comprehensive schools are important for social cohesion, but not for some of the reasons you've given.

Because if you select by academic results rather than distance you don't need to live close to school to get into it.

So then the wealthy parents take all the school places and don't even need to live in the crappy area near the school to do so!

Quack

I don't think you can really have the argument both ways - that schools teach children to live in the area they grew up in and that is an advantage, particularly as teachers can tailor their approach to the communities they work in. But then to deny that it is an advantage for teachers to be able to tailor their approach to the selective intake they have whether at grammar school or a socially selective school through other means.

Surely teachers at Grammars, with an intake from a wider geographical area, containing students from many different communities, cannot tailor their approach in the same way though? If you are talking about tailoring the approach with regards to academic criteria, comprehensive schools still do this, in the form of streaming and setting. Comprehensive schools are better, though, when they contain a greater proportion of children from a particular community to allow them to have adequate numbers to form sets for all abilities. The presence of a 'dual' (selective and comprehensive) system can compromise this.

I agree that comprehensive schools are important for social cohesion, but not for some of the reasons you've given.

So why do you think comprehensive schools are important for social cohesion?

noble, extra money allows people to make choices. it could be on themselves or it can be on their children.
wealth in any sense means options.