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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Probably - But our LEA's process for secondary admissions seems completely unfair.

54 replies

MonochromeDog · 27/09/2017 20:15

I actually feel like stamping my foot and shouting "waaaaa it's not fair". Blush

We live across the road from one of the best secondary schools in the city! (Literally can see it from my house). I always though dd2 would have no problem getting in even though it's a faith school and we're not religious.

Yet it seems this year the LEA have decided to completely change the goalposts for secondary admissions and they don't base any of the decisions on distance from home to school.

So each school I've applied for you need to either be CofE (and have the obvious proof), pass an entrance exam (for a state school!) or have an aptitude for music or art. DD2 has none of these. She's dyslexic, struggles academically, and isn't really exceptionally good at any one thing, she's just average.

The one hope I have is one of the schools is an academy (not out nearest one) but is a good school and there's an entrance assessment. They take so many kids from each academic level.

Other than that she's going to end up in one of the city's shitty comps which incidentally the nearest is 2 bus rides away! As opposed to going the excellent school over the road!

Feeling completely frustrated and stressed with the whole bloody thing!

OP posts:
CamperVamp · 27/09/2017 20:24

Well, to be fair a faith school will be its own admission authority and decide its own admission criteria, and they usually prioritise the religious over distance. So not the LA's fault.

Are the schools that demand an exam pass Grammars? Are the aptitude places in Comps, or faith schools?

It is very frustrating : IMO all schools should be Comps, with the same admission criteria, except perhaps different schools could have a few places based on specialised aptitudes, e.g one specialises in music, one in sport, languages, maths etc.

Andrewofgg · 27/09/2017 20:33

If all the people with an opinion on schools admissions were laid end to end they wouldn't reach a conclusion. Parents will always judge a process on how it works for their child - if they get the result they want it is fair, if they don't it isn't.

CamperVamp the trouble with schools specialising is that it depends on retaining individual teachers who may retire or move on and replacing them with other specialists if they do, and that's nt always easy.

CamperVamp · 27/09/2017 20:36

I don't mean the whole school focuses on those subjects, but just had a few 'scholarship' places that support talented young people with an extra offer. I honestly can't imagine a comp that couldn't encompass, within the whole music department , a teacher who devised an enrichment programme for pupils with special talent. Ditto other subjects.

TeenTimesTwo · 27/09/2017 20:43

they don't base any of the decisions on distance from home to school

So if they are oversubscribed in a category, are you saying they go to lottery?

What if not enough 'children of the faith' apply to the CofE school? Who is next in line?

Not disbelieving you, just checking you understand it right.

Original poster
MonochromeDog · 27/09/2017 20:47

Next in line would be kids from the other categories - other faiths, musical and art etc. But the good schools are all oversubscribed so no chance of them not being able to fill spaces.

OP posts:
Original poster
MonochromeDog · 27/09/2017 20:48

No, not grammars, just ordinary faith schools. The aptitude places are also the faith schools.

OP posts:
TeenTimesTwo · 27/09/2017 20:52

Something like 'music aptitude' usually has a limited number of places doesn't it?
Do you fancy listing the categories?

TeenTimesTwo · 27/09/2017 20:59

The entrance assessment with be a fair banding test which ensures a cross section of ability. Within each band they will have over subscription probably based on distance or lottery.

Have you looked at the 'last place offered' information for each school for last year (if they haven't just changed the criteria)?

Remember if you can put 3 schools down on your form, then schools will on average be 3x oversubscribed.

poisonedbypen · 27/09/2017 21:02

Remember if you can put 3 schools down on your form, then schools will on average be 3x oversubscribed.
What?? We can out 6 down (it is it 5?). Schools aren't 6 times oversubscribed. Where did that come from?

TeenTimesTwo · 27/09/2017 21:07

Because schools can count the number of applications to them, not differentiating whether they were 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 6th preference.

I think I'm right saying this. I expect @admission or @tiggytape or one of the other experts will correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think they only count those who put them first choice.

namechangedtoday15 · 27/09/2017 21:15

Why would you think she'd get in to a religious school (which are always - as far as I know - entitled to use their own admission criteria) if you're nor religious? Usually non religious children come way down the over subscription eligibility. Has it always been under subscribed?

What's changed about the other schools? I presume the selective schools have always prioritised the children who "pass"? Are the aptitudes / scholarships for music and art new?

ReinettePompadour · 27/09/2017 21:18

Because schools can count the number of applications to them, not differentiating whether they were 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 6th preference

Yes DDs high school boldly claim to be the most oversubscribed in the area. The reality is more people put it as their 2nd/3rd/5th reserve choice than their 1st preferred school choice at our primary school.

A few parents from other primaries also claim this was the case for them too.

So technically it does appear to be the most oversubscribed but the reality is that adding up all of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd choices means it was the most popular listed out of all applications rather than it got more 1st/preferred applications than any other school.

I do believe that the schools never know what position a parent listed them in, they just know x number listed them as a choice.

ZigZagIntoTheBlue · 27/09/2017 21:31

They will have consulted on proposed changes approx 18 months ago so yabu to claim they've done it without warning. They have to show they've advertised the consultation to potentially affected groups so you can always ask where it was advertised, but if it's a faith school they may only have advertised it in church? Did they have a distance criterion before? Ask your LEA for guidance, the admissions team should have someone whose job it is to keep an eye on these things!

cheminotte · 27/09/2017 21:34

Don't religious schools have to take a proportion of non religious pupils by law?

sailorcherries · 27/09/2017 21:37

I've never understood the English way of allocating schools.

We have primary schools with a catchment area, both non-denominational and RC and you go to your nearest (parents pick faith or non-faith). If you'd rather send your child to a different school you make a placong request and if enough spaces are available after catchment children then you go.

Primary schools then feed in to certain high schools (faith to faith schools and non-faith to non-faith). If you want to go to a different school then you make a request.

There is always a place at the local school for catchment children. Sometimes the catchments change due to new build estates and so on.

I cannot imagine the stress of selecting schools, enterance exams and then being sent to one miles away requiring multiple uses of public transport. I hope things work out for your DD.

bluejelly · 27/09/2017 21:41

If it were to me I would ban faith schools and grammars. So divisive

emma6776 · 27/09/2017 22:02

I just find that insane. I'm in Scotland and there are 3 choices - your catchment school, the nearest Catholic school or go private. If you're in the catchment you're in.

Andrewofgg · 27/09/2017 22:16

If it were to me I would ban faith schools

After signing out of the ECHR, of course.

If we were setting up a system from scratch, perhaps, but we are not.

TeenTimesTwo · 27/09/2017 22:21

Ah emma but iirc from a different thread, doesn't the Scottish system lead to more multi-year group classes as everything is jiggled around to take that 31st child who is in catchment, and/or larger classes and/or extra teachers being employed? So it is good in some ways, but less good in others? And of course you don't have anywhere quite as densely populated as London or Birmingham.

titchy · 27/09/2017 22:25

Whilst you may not get a place in the faith school if ALL the places go to those of faith, only 10% of places can be allocated based on aptitude so that should still leave you a decent chance at one of the other schools. It should be easy enough to find out how places were allocated last year to give you a more realistic idea.

Haint · 27/09/2017 22:29

The only school In our small market town is an academy. They've changed their admissions policy to give priority to pupils from schools in the same academy group. This will mean that children from village schools far closer to the next town along will be bussed to our town whilst the kids from the two primaries in our town, which are not part of the group will need to be bussed to the next town over. Madness.

emma6776 · 27/09/2017 22:38

@TeenTimesTwo - you're probably correct there. My DD (P1) is in a year group of 90, and her class is a composite group of 43 (with two teachers). It does seem (so far) to be working well though, although I'm not sure I'll still agree by secondary time!

TheClacksAreDown · 27/09/2017 22:44

Why would you just assume your child would get into a faith school if you are not of that faith?

Near me for certain areas the nearest 2 primaries are faith schools with admissions criteria that match yet every year it seems to catch parents unaware that their atheist family are at the bottom of the list for admissions.

LuluJakey1 · 27/09/2017 22:48

OP, and that is how you end up with 'shitty comps' as you put it . Academies and faith schools can select by one means or another, as do other schools in smart areas. The 'shitty comps' are left with low ability children, who have no particular talent, don't live in smart areas or have pushy parents and then struggle to get decent results. Surprisingly, many of these 'shitty comps' are filled with very happy, well-taught children who do reasonably well given their ability and disadvantages. My husband is a Deputy Head in just such a school - surrounded by a catholic school, an academy - who only take children who are gifted musically and whose parents can cough up the £300+ for the uniform and who won't take any child with SEN, and two schools in very smart areas of the borough whose parents are very vocal and fight every attempt to make them more comprehensive - they had 6 and 12 PP students last year in total out of 1000+ students each. DH's school is in the middle of one of the most deprived council estates in the country with 480 PP students out of 600. It is filled with the students the other schools will not accept or kick out very quickly and recommend Dh's school as 'able to deal with children with behaviour problems'.
The system is unbalanced and unfair.

TheHungryDonkey · 27/09/2017 23:15

Op YANBU and I feel the same way. I'm in an area where our closest school is random allocation with some music places, a faith school where you have to have been going to church every week for three years minimum - though they take 16 local children and four of other faiths, another random allocation school and a school that's massively over subscribed and the area of priority stretches in the opposite direction to us.

It's not fair that local children are excluded from what should be local schools. The local area is considered majorly deprived yet all these schools have Ofsted outstanding results, some a tiny percentage of free school meals and children that are bused and trained in from the outskirts of the city whilst those in the city next door to the schools are busing out.

The council should never have allowed a situation like this to have occurred. It boils my piss that children from miles away get into our schools and we can't.