To think this is an elite school system via the back door.

[1DAD2KIDS]

There is a very good state school in my city. It has great facilities, staff and excellent (plus ever improving) results. It is a school that would give any private sector school a run for its money.

As a result a strange thing has happened over the last 10 years. It was once in a pretty average area with house prices reflecting the rest of the city. But now it is within in a bubble of masivly inflated house prices and rents within its catchment area. The difference in prices between a house that is in the catchment area and one just outside it is staggering. When a house in the catchment area is on the market it's always advertised in BOLD print in the catchment area of said school. These houses fly off the market.

It's clear what is going on here. As the middle classes have been priced out of the private sector they have found a new more affordable way to set up an elite school system. Afterall when you think about it in the long run its a far more ecconomical way to get your kids in a great school without paying private sector prices and once the kids have grown up you could sell the house on again and get the money back (or more). The demographic in the school has masivly changed over the last 10 years. Now the kids are pretty much all from well off, well educated backgrounds. It is no secret that part of the schools improving high achievement is due to change in student demographic. Also the school is not short of generous parents who donate or raise extra funds for the school. The only way to get into the school as it's soon popular is to live in the catchment area. The only way you can afford to live in that area and thus attend the school is by being well off. Even pretty much all the council housing in the area has gone through right to buy and now sells/rents at ridiculous prices.

What has happened in this case is clear. It is an elite school were you can only go to if you can afford the very expensive catchment area. A school for the well off funded by the state. There is nothing technically wrong but is there something morally wrong? Is it in the spirit of the state school system to have an excellent state school were only those wealthy enough can attend due to catchment area? Or is it just another obstical to social mobility?

And it is not a matter of 'opting out' either. It is about making more inclusive, less socially divisive and discriminatory rules in the first place.

Oh you mean not getting a proper haircut. Ignoring that would be great for preparing kids for the workplace.

I asked about homework and you didn't reply.

Oh you mean not getting a proper haircut. Ignoring that would be great for preparing kids for the workplace.

A short back and sides is routinely worn across the majority of workplaces. Men and women are also usually allowed long hair and dreadlocks if neatly tied back or up. I'm not talking about offensive symbols shaved into hair.

I asked about homework and you didn't reply.

Homework should be correctly differentiated so it can be completed by the child independently. Places to do homework should be provided within schools, also, as part of supporting those children who do not have easy access to this within their home environment.

Re rules, dd went to a primary with high Sen. In the early years it's true that most dc struggled to really understand why x might get rewarded for not hitting anyone or why z was always congratulated for coming in uniform with bag etc. Because with kids that young you can't really go into detail about the specifics of the sn you strongly suspect x has, or the fact that z comes from a dysfunctional home and if they turn up kitted out they'd done it without parental input. But by ks2 most kids can grasp that they haven't all started from the same place. Certainly by secondary they should be able to understand that reasonable allowances for some circumstances are fair.

Re funding, no, schools with mainly mc intakes don't need as much. I wouldn't be breaking my heart if the parents at such a school had to fully fund a library or sports kit, or instruments etc or contribute to an IT dept between them. If the result of that meant more money for deprived intakes. Of course if mc parents don't like the idea of a comprehensive system where their dc get the shit end of the stick, they'd have the option of the schools with largely deprived kids. Eventually you'd end up with genuinely mixed intakes in all.

Also pp isn't the only way to define deprivation. Plenty of families are in poverty but just over fsm level. And there is a world of difference between what a family on say £20k can provide, despite making ends meet, compared to one on £60k.

I do agree about the London centric funding, teachers aren't paid that much more there, and London is not the only place with high levels of deprivation. At least deprived dc there have the infrastructure to access resources. Because again the funding for those is London centric. Dc in deprived rural and coastal areas can't just stroll to a library or hop on a bus with an Oyster card to the nearest museum.

Simple solution to the problem- improve shitty schools.

I don't like the ideas of manipulating and controlling families by lotteries, bussing, social engineering etc Parents should have some choices for their children. If underperforming schools improve, there won't be a desire/need to pay through the nose to live in the catchment. It will also benefit everyone.

For a start, I do hope to see more weight on measures such as Progress 8 as a better indication of school's effectiveness than GCSE league tables.

I also think it'd be appalling to try and charge mc parents for things like library books whilst others schools have budgets for them. Such expenditure should be managed through taxes.

It's also important to acknowledge that there's a hefty premium for children on free school meals so the schools in poor areas are better off.

I was interested to see that the new (ish) University of Birmingham school (which borders some affluent areas) sets four catchment points. One from its locality and three from other points, less advantaged areas, in the city. Not looked yet but I'd be interested to see its results. There always looks to be something really interesting/enriching going on so I wonder if four selected catchment areas would work. Would these house prices inflate?

I don't know much about the London schools but see that the Harris chain has some excellent results in less advantaged areas.

Both UoB and Harris seem to do things differently to others. Are they more 'successful'?

Middleoftheroad Do UoB and Harris accept sibling preference? The case for that is overwhelming in practical terms.

Good point. I don't know - not so refreshing if siblings are at different schools (my twins are at different schools, but thats due to selection with one at comp and one at grammar )

My local Harris (S London) does operate the sibling priority rule.

UoBS cannot be deemed successful- no-one has sat GCSE with them yet!
I am also rather dubious about their intake- originally 50% were from local area, 50% from the 3 nodes, but I'm fairly sure that has changed to a higher percentage from the local area, presumably as the children from the nodes weren't quite what they were hoping for?

jojo I don't like the fact that the only real option to most near me is a dire sink school. Or controlling full potential and social mobility by shoehorning poorer dc into bad schools so the mc can buy pick good schools at liberty . I also don't see why the only way to access a school with a full academic curriculum round here is either a statement naming it, private bursary or finding God. As nobody has solved these issues yet we need other solutions, which will have to involve the mc buying better comprehensives. Much better they buy resources instead of paying off the mortgage.

You also don't seem to know how pp works. It isn't a fortune and fsm only applies to the very poorest, and doesn't address the fact that a school where most of the intake are from homes just above cut off point will have very different needs to a school where the rest are from wealthy homes. It certainly won't buy either a fsm dc or any child at the local school a qualified permanent teacher, or the chance to do 2 mfl or triple science. Or indeed slt that have at least a passing interest in education.

What goes around comes around. In not too many years all the children of those infiltrators will have grown and moved to other schools, uni, or have left area. Parents will still be there sitting on the nest egg and school will have to widen catchment area as child numbers will have dropped. Where I live a secondary school is closing due to lack of pupils. This is due to population ageing so less children around. Evolution basically and supply and demand.

Lurker,

Pupil premium is a significant amount. It’s almost 1k at secondary at 1.3k in primary (average funding per pupil is 6.3 and 4.9k respectively) so it’s a massive amount. It applies to 15% of children in England so definitely a significant cohort. In the mc areas, less then 5% of children will attract the funding. In deprived areas it’s even 50%+ so that’s a lot of money! And the mc schools are very much the underfunded ones.

And yes, I am a firm believer in spending money on school improvement of shitty schools. Until a few years ago, funding went though the local LAs. They also employed a high number of consultants, extra teachers etc that would be despatched to bring up the weakest schools. Locally, that’s only been cut very recently and if you look at our local stats, out of 15 secondaries only one performed below the national average despite 5 grammar schools locally (that naturally attract the brightest). You might think the grammars would impact the intake in the other schools but there are some high achieving ones including one with over 40% A-A* at GCSE last year (for those who’ve found God). The school with 36% of PP kids is just above national average in attainment. Overall, the LA has the highest GCSE point scores per pupil in all of England. And no, it’s not an area fashionable with affluent mc and actually one of the cheapest places to live in London.

One of the local primaries is in the top 10 highest performing in schools in London and top 100 in the country. No affluent mc around there either. A house around the corner from the school is currently on the market for 310k (that’s a 2-bed in London, ok decor and a garage) and a 2-bed flat can be had for 260k...

So yes, around here we’ve got excellent schools for everyone and no one needs to pay a penny for the catchment.

If schools set homework is differentiated at secondary.A kid in top set will be doing very different homework to one in the bottom.

At primary kids read books and learn spellings individual to them.

I'm not entirely sure that a two tier system with mc kids being in schools that can't provide IT,music,good exam choice,books etc whilst their parents party taxes for children in other schools to have everything would be a vote winner.

I'd still love to know how you'd organise such a system. I'm on minimum wage but my partner isn't. Many on 20k and lower will have income earning partners to top it up. Plenty would put off promotion or having a second earner in the family until school places were allocated.

Pay

Meh. A school with students from families who are well educated and produces well educated students is coasting. It's not a great school no matter how hard they kiss ofsted's lazy rear end.
A school that took in average students and produced above average results would be good. Or a school taking students with massive hurdles to education and producing average results.
It's not the achievements that people select schools for (not if they understand them). It's just the continuing UK obsession with mixing with "our Sorry.

"Our sort"

We moved house within edinburgh and school catchment was very important to us (your guaranteed a catchment school place here). We looked at a lot of options and yes there is a big premium on houses in the “right” catchment but there’s also possibilities in each if you’re willing to compromise. And tgeees rental properties and housing association in every catchment too. We’ve moved into the catchment for the third best secondary and our primary is adjacent to some pretty tired old council housing and the demographic will be mixed. I think that’s a good thing. I want my children to have opportunities but not live in a privileged bubble. I went to a “rough” school and then a very posh university and I think I have a very rounded life experience from that.

If schools set homework is differentiated at secondary.A kid in top set will be doing very different homework to one in the bottom

And your point is? Work has to be tailored to a child's attainment and abilities. Otherwise they will need 'teaching' outside school in order to complete their homework. Not all parents have the time or ability or money to employ a tutor - which agains perpetuates social disadvantage.

At primary kids read books and learn spellings individual to them.

You would hope so. Many just plod through schemes with little actual teacher input. My DC often received books which were not tailored to their reading ability, understanding or interests. They could read fluently and understand what was read by preschool age. Spelling was learnt very easily. Thankfully, I've got a degree in English and education so had a good knowledge regarding sourcing more appropriate books and extending reading skills. Still got some awful reading books at primary which was nearly enough to put them off. Reading homework was a 'battle' to say the least. I had to be very creative to ensure it was done.

I'm not entirely sure that a two tier system with mc kids being in schools that can't provide IT,music,good exam choice,books etc whilst their parents party taxes for children in other schools to have everything would be a vote winner.

This is exactly what I'm arguing against. I believe that parents subsidising schools perpetuates social inequality. I pointed this out in a previous post.

I believe in good, non discriminatory, fully comprehensive education which is tailored towards serving the local community.

To my mind PP is just a sticking plaster which masks the problem of education not being fully funded. Of course (as a sticking plaster) it should targeted towards the socially disadvantaged as parents are less likely to have enough resources to support their child's education. However it is not a real solution for educational disadvantage, IMO.

I did vote Labour in the last election. I think more of our taxes needs to be channelled into education.

You said schools should differentiate homework,my point was they already are.

museumum If you are guaranteed a place on catchment what happens if in Year X there are more children in area than there are places? LAC and sibling preference and then what?

I think the idea that simply throwing money at schools in deprived area will solve the problem is flawed. Money will certainly help some aspects, of course- improving fabric of the school, paying for books/physical resources, allowing subsidies to be paid for school trips and so on- so although I do agree more money is needed, there's so much more to it IMO

Why is the attainment gap so great? It's not just about the money each school school has to spend. It's how and on what that money is spent, it's about the leadership of the HT and management team, it's about the quality of the teaching staff. And even then, there's still the issues surrounding parental support, aspiration and so on. There are a number of studies which show parental educational levels (not necessarily wealth, though obviously the 2 often do go together) and parental attitudes towards education are two of the biggest factors in determining educational achievement for children.

There's a reasonable amount of evidence that these inequalities are already evident in most children's development before child is 3 years old, by 5 that gap has widened further. Schools can do a lot to even that out, but not always- and it's harder if parents aren't on board. Before I'm jumped on, I'm not saying parents on low incomes have low aspiration for their children and never value education- but it lack of parental engagement can be a problem.

Given this, surely it is as important to invest in early years education as this is likely to yield greater £ for £ benefit as any other intervention.

Given this, surely it is as important to invest in early years education as this is likely to yield greater £ for £ benefit as any other intervention.

I'm not entirely sure. I think there needs to be much more research, especially into the quality of the early education which is available. Personally I think low quality early 'education' can be actively detrimental to a child's development and self esteem.

The all too frequent horror stories of the lower quality sort are sometimes, quite frankly, beyond belief. Lack of inclusion, lack of duty of care, lack of safeguarding, bad communication, poorly qualified staff- the list goes on. And of course these issues are all of vital importance to an establishment's success.

In my own personal experience my DC's secondary has been the most professional education establishment we have come across.

There is no way grammars are a solution. They are paid for up front by ridiculous amounts of tutoring of the wealthy middle class kids who at 10 should be enjoying a balanced life.
I don't recall parental choice in the 70s. You went to nearest primary and then middle and senior schools followed through.
DS 2 goes to an outstanding school. We are not on catchment but they select on performing arts aptitude. They do not select academically and by no means are the kids all from wealthy backgrounds. They get better results than another outstanding school that selects 60 pupils on ability. They get results because the staff are great and the school ethos prepares them very early in small steps for GCSEs. So they get useful homeworks like make 10 revision cards on x topic.
I have experience of 3 high schools and the 2 that get the best results constantly prepare the kids so there's no panic rush in the crucial year. And all 3 schools seem to me to really care for their pupils.