To say that the English system of school allocations seems bonkers?

[Edinburghgirlie]

I have been reading with interest the threads about school placements and potential appeals and find it bonkers. Here in Scotland you live in a catchment area and you automatically get a space at that school...no question. If you want to go to another school then you put in a placing request and if they have spaces unfillled by catchment children then they consider siblings already there and proximity to the school.
It’s very clear cut here, although it does lead to house prices being pushed up if they are in the catchment of a ‘desirable’ school. I really don’t envy people down south not knowing which school they will get in to.
AIBU in thinking the English system seems bonkers?

Are there really that many crap schools in England

Yes there are

It depends what you mean by 'crap'.

• There are schools which have been judged to require improvement or special measures by Ofsted.

• There are schools with low headline results.

• There are schools with a high proportion of socio-economically deprived pupils.

• There are schools which are historically 'avoided by MC parents' or which are 'not regarded as as good as other local schools in local eyes' .

• There are schools with below average progress8, or well below average - ie students don't make as much progress as they should do from their starting points.

The thing is, all are functions of the intake, not the school. The only one that is slightly better is progress8, and even that is flawed, because it is more difficult to make progress with a cohort who are very deprived, have no books at home, are often hungry, come from families with long histories of worklessness in poor coastal towns and / or are from groups who historically progress poorly in school e.g. Gypsy/Roma/traveller families.

Yanbu, I always think the English system sounds horrendously stressful

Not just for parents, either. One year, my colleague who set up all the admission appeal panels had surgery that meant he was on sick leave for 6 weeks while secondary appeals were running, and I had to cover for him.

I could not believe the abuse, threats etc I got from parents who were unsuccessful. Some actually travelled halfway across the county to be abusive in person and the police had to be called twice. I was scared they'd lie in wait for me when I left at the end of the day!

Realised it sounded like I don't know how Scotland works; I meant I don't know every single catchment so I can't speak for random parts of the HIghlands (for example) where there may only be an RC school.

CantKeep that was the situation for the OP, until the nominally CofE school changed heads and became hard core. She was pilloried for sending her kids to a religious school and objecting to a religious education when she realistically didn't have much option.

Are there really that many crap schools in England

Judged on status last time they were inspected by Ofsted:
89% of secondary schools and 90% of primary schools were judged Good or Outstanding.

6% of secondary and 1% of primary were judged 'Inadequate'.

Round here there are good / outstanding schools that are still not over-subscribed because the social profile of the school is not deemed desirable.

55% of Inadequate and Requires Improvement schools are in areas of high deprivation.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofsted-annual-report-201617-education-childrens-services-and-skills/ofsted-annual-report-201617-data-summary

55% of Inadequate and Requires Improvement schools are in areas of high deprivation.

Exactly. Ofsted grade and %Pupil Premium are not independent variables - schools with the lowest % of very deprived pupils are almost all Outstanding with a few Good (and almost all are selective), while those with the highest % are almost all RI or SM (with exceptional catholic schools and a few schools in London - exceptionally highly funded)

In Paris, I've heard of people renting tiny studios in smart areas with good schools.

I'm sure that sort of thing happens here. My SIL lives very close to an excellent school. Her DH is building 2 extensions to their tiny bungalow, which will give them a 2-bed annexe and a 4-bed, 2-storey extension with a 2nd kitchen.

They have had people offering them ridiculous amounts (£2k+ a month) to rent the annexe or extension as the address virtually guarantees them a place at the school. If they agreed, they'd get enough rental income in one year to pay off the mortgage they took out to do the work!

There are crap English schools, but also crap Scottish ones. Back in the day, there was no way I was going to Musselburgh Grammar School.

Agreed CraftyGin - I was 10 when I refused point blank to go to WHEC!

WHEC was such a thing in the late 70s/early 80s. Radio Forth loved it.

COfE schools are open to the whole community
That is just not true in England. My local C of E secondary school gives 196 out of 216 priority places to Church Applicants, then when you add in LAC, children of teachers, siblings etc there are zero place for the local community.

Are there really that many crap schools in England
Agree with other posters, yes there are.

In Paris, I've heard of people renting tiny studios in smart areas with good schools
In England I have seen social media posts from parents desperate for a 6 month rental so they can use the address to get into outstanding schools. Its expensive but compared to private schooling its a bargain.

I do think that one of the differences between England and Scotland is the 'visibility' of the quality of schools.

Maybe it's because I don't live there, but i am not aware of league tables, graded inspection findings etc being such a big, public thing in Scotland?

One thing I notice reading through this thread, is how many Scottish posters saying that there aren't allowed more than 25 in a class in P1-3 in Scotland. Where are these schools? My DS never had less than 33 in a class in his Scottish schools. P3 it was 35! And there was always a composite class between years. This was in Lothian btw. Moved schools, same situation. My DS has special needs and needed extra assistance, he never received any (but that is likely a whole other thread).
And CfE is appalling, there will be big ramifications felt from that in 10 years or so IMO.

According to the official stats across Scotland there are 5466 P1-3 classes (that's the straights, I've left out the composites for speed)

P1 is limited to 25. There are 2221, of which 80 have more than 25 pupils. Of those, the majority have 2 teachers - only 26 classes have more than 25 and only one teacher
P2 and 3 is 30. There are a total of 35 with more than 30 children (out of 3245 total)

A few years ago there weren't meant to be more than 18 in P1-3 classes. This has quickly risen to 25. When my kids went through school in the 90s they were rarely in a class of fewer than 30.

I think some parents in England are obsessed with gradings and league tables. Here, we get inspected and nobody seems to bother that much about the results. One school got a pretty bad report but pupils didn't leave in droves.

My OH used to work in an outstanding academy in London. He said it was a horrible place to work

My local RC primary/secondary school takes non catholic children. Nowadays , here anyway, you don’t have to be catholic to go to the RC school. Children who are baptised get priority places over non baptised children which is fair enough but there are plenty who go there who aren’t catholic.

I think some parents in England are obsessed with gradings and league tables. Here, we get inspected and nobody seems to bother that much about the results. One school got a pretty bad report but pupils didn't leave in droves.

DD's old primary got a terrible report - unsatisfactory or poor in most areas the only thing to be praised was the pastoral care in p4-7.

Pupils didn't leave in droves most likely because the next closest school within a 10 mile radius is a tiny village school with 3 classes so wouldn't have the capacity. What did happen was the head was asked to has resigned & a few of the teachers have been sent on training or to shadow other teachers in other schools with better reports.

There was also a supervisor type person put in place to oversee changes to the school & she has now taken on the role of acting head.

I do think that one of the differences between England and Scotland is the 'visibility' of the quality of schools
How do you think Scottish parents would react if there was more transparency like there is in England? If you were told by the government that the catchment school you have been allocated is failing/inadequate but the school in the neighbouring catchment down the street, which you are not allowed into, is good/outstanding.

Would it change behaviour?

Walking we do have that - our school reports are online for anyone to see

I live in the catchment for two of the best schools in the UK so I could choose either. Having a form to state my preference was useful as my dd much preferred one to the other. We are also in catchment for a third school which we didn't even consider putting down. Having a preference form means that County know what order you like for the schools, and if a place becomes available can offer you one higher up your list. The children in care, catchment, siblings ranking still applies but if you wanted school A and didn't get it on the above, any remaining places would be first given to those who had it as a first choice (although still based on mileage).

WhiskeySourpuss
I did imagine such reports exist, I was talking about the transparency of the data. I went on the Scottish education website and as an example looked at Fife. There were 17 secondary schools and only 7 reports, I found no easy way of being able to compare how a school was doing so I could make a judgement on which was best for my child? I looked at some schools individual websites and just couldn't find out how they were rated.

If I was to move to Scotland how would I know which school was best?

My ex was Dutch. He felt the same way as you OP. The system in the Netherlands also applied to higher education when he was there - so he said.

Many people like to congratulate themselves for sending their child to their catchment school, but often forget that all the houses in their catchment are 200k +, which is totally out of reach for many families.

You only have to look at MN threads- why do the same school names come up time and time again?!

It’s probably been said but it’s exactly the same in the south of England.

But how are schools supposed to cope if the number of children in their catchment in any given year is more than they can accommodate? Schools are running on a shoestring budget and it’s difficult to flex space and staffing year on year. Any extra children are better accommodated by a bulge year at the school in the area best able to cope.