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?

although it does lead to house prices being pushed up if they are in the catchment of a ‘desirable’ school

They way the English decided to tackle this was to change the catchment and criteria - INSTEAD of improving the school system!

So by putting in mixed ability classes rather than top classes they would 'prove' that all schools could get good grades by sharing the ability -

Madness!!

The problem where I live (south east)seems to be that there are too many failing schools. The middle class, more affluent families are all sending their children to secondary schools outside the area, meaning the local schools are undersubscribed and have less funding, so get even worse. It's a vicious circle.

fuckoffsnow that snobbery will do them no good once the kids are at high school as the current catchment high school isn't great

Where we are a housing developer wants to build a shit load of houses on an old factory site and the council have basically insisted that part of the land is allocated for a new school and it seems like the developer is stumping up some of the cash.

I think it keeps planners a bit more alert and on the ball knowing that they will have to accommodate any children locally.

Newham borough in London has a system to allocate children in schools nearer their home, which seems sensible.

At present, in most other London areas, it is a lottery. Some people may be in the catchment area for 5 or more primary schools, whereas others may be in the catchment for none. The result of which is that many children in London have to travel a significant distance, past many other schools.

The vast majority of people in England get their local school and are content.These are not the people we hear from on MN.

This.

The vast majority of people in England get their local school and are content.These are not the people we hear from on MN.

This is not quite correct. It entirely depends on where you live. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea only 68% got their first choice. This is hardly a vast majority.

The Scottish system can lead to huge primary schools - the catchment school for us has 700 children spilt across two schools (one faith school, one non-denominational co-located). There are also within 10 mins driving distance a number of smaller schools with much smaller rolls (150-250 children) so a good deal of choice and I’m not in a particularly urban setting. I know rural areas are much different but on the whole the system works.

And yes the Scottish school system is struggling but I’d suggest that’s because teachers are being asked to everything except actually teach kids.

Also in Scotland there is the placing request system, so if another school would be more beneficial for your child for a specific reason then you can request them to go to another school. The likelihood of it being accepted depends on the capacity of that school and the reasons. One of mine went to a non-catchment primary because she used crutches or a walker for several years. One primary is a tower style over 5 levels and the other is a one level job. Going non-cat game to meant she didn't need assistance and could just get on 'normally' (for want of a better word) and that was an acceptable reason for a pr.

Where we are a housing developer wants to build a shit load of houses on an old factory site and the council have basically insisted that part of the land is allocated for a new school and it seems like the developer is stumping up some of the cash.

This is called a developer contribution and LAs are quite dependent on them to find the capital to build new schools.

This is not quite correct. It entirely depends on where you live. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea only 68% got their first choice. This is hardly a vast majority

But how many of the 32% made unrealistic choices and how many if them git their 2nd choice

To the previous poster who said the way to avoid very high numbers per year would be to shrink the catchment:

it's not as simple as that. To begin with, it would mean non-meeting catchments OR some people between catchments having to be bussed miles away. Also, the main reason for very high numbers of applicants (we hear a vast number of appeals per year) is from families moving in in preparation for (the local popular) secondary.

So those families aren't in catchment at the beginning of their children's primary schooling, but are by the end.

Instead of taking those children and expanding, they are allocated to the nearest school with places OR (if they have just moved across town, which is very, very common) they stay at their existing primary.

I’d be surprised if a school only found out at enrolment time that they suddenly had 70 new P1s in their catchment.

The way it works in this LEA is that the catchment shrinks and expands so that the number of P1s in the catchment is always the same as the number of places. Parents then appeal for places, and it's down to the panel whether they let a couple of extra kids in or not.

There has been a lot of infill development in my town over the last 20 years or so, ranging from a single house to 80-odd. This has caused a lot of pressure on school places. There are now several big developments in the pipeline, and the biggest (500+ homes) includes building a new primary school. The LEA closed down a special school and there's outline PP for around 100 homes on the site. They'd have done better to mothball the building to use as a school, imo, as there's now a proposal for 200+ homes on an edge of town site.

I totally get that the homes are badly needed, but unless they plan for school places, it's going to mean an awful lot of children travelling a long way to school.

dragon a significant proportion don't get any of their 6 choices. This includes posters who put all of their 6 nearest schools but didn't get a single one as they are not in a single catchment area. This is not uncommon in London sadly.

I think it is hard for Scottish contributors to realise how few parents APPLY to their catchment school in some areas. So actually, far FEWER parents might be satisfied if they were allocated their catchment school than are content currently.

Are ALL placing requests honoured in Scotland? Do places like Gillespie's / Boroughmuir (sp?) in Edinburgh take all those who make lacing requests there?

Or is it just like England in built up areas - in England, many parents choose out-of-catchment schools and are sad when they don't get them and are allocated further away schools, whereas in Scotland people request further away schools out of catchment, don't get them and may be sad because they automatically get their catchment school?

The way it works in this LEA is that the catchment shrinks and expands so that the number of P1s in the catchment is always the same as the number of places.

So exactly like England - where is is known as 'effective catchment' or 'effective admissions area'. No predictability for those who might or might not be in the effective catchment in any given year.

hibbledibble, Do you have any figures for how many people put down all their 6 nearest schools and don't get any of them, both in London and nationwide?

I don't, tbh, think it is as vast a number as it sometimes appears on MN. Yes, a proportion of people don't get any of their choices and are then allocated a school further away (because their catchment school and other closer schools are full of people who DID put them down) However, the proportion, nationwide, of those who filled in the maximum number of schools and included all their closest schools / schools where they had highest priority, missing out none, is probably very small, simply because so few people actually fill in their forms like that.

Are ALL placing requests honoured in Scotland?

No. There has to be a reason for a PR, and the school has to have the capacity.

Also, in my council anyway, if you go for a pr there's no free transport if it's further away (even if you were already entitled to transport to catchment school) and there's no guarantee of a sibling going.

”you are guaranteed a space at your catchment school”

So some years the P1 class might have 33 children in it, some years 25? Surely that represents funding problems and the quality of teaching?

So in Scotland there is a guaranteed fallback, (which is usually but not always the catchment school, noting the comment about changes of catchment size and some people being bussed across town to a school with capacity), and 'hopeful' applications elsewhere depend on merit of application and capacity of the chosen school?

That's pretty much exactly the same as the situation in England, especially in not-London. The situation in built-up areas of e.g. Edinburgh will be similar to the situation in metropolitan areas of England, and the situation in rural or more sparsely populated areas = catchment school the only realistic option.

@flowery if the number of p1's would exceed the maximum pupils per class limit then there would either be 2 p1 classes or a p1 & a p1/2 composite class that year.

"Witchend - all the scottish schools of my experience in deprived areas and actually by scots that have never lived outside of Scotland not considered that great - way better than the truly appalling English schools I have experience of."

This is my impression as well Graphista In Glasgow, for example, its not uncommon for primary schools in deprived areas to operate a "nurture room"; a level of attention to behaviour and pastoral care that is unheard of in England.

So some years the P1 class might have 33 children in it, some years 25? Surely that represents funding problems and the quality of teaching?

No, there's a maximum of 25. So if you had 33 p1's you'd either have two small classes or one P1 and one P1/2 composite class.

flowery

As I understand it, they create another class if it is 33 not 25, but of course that depends on physical capacity. So a school which normally has 25 but has 75 this year could a) create temporary classrooms or b) the council makes a decision about capacity elsewhere, an example of which is given in a previous poster's story. If that school has 75 year on year, then the catchment will change.

(I suspect the dynamism of population movement must be lower in Scotland overall. I'm not in London or anywhere near it, but we have huge movement of children into the catchment year on year, which makes modelling very difficult)

What a PP said... it’s not a choice, it’s a preference that we get to stipulate.

As for postcode....This year I know three different families who didn’t get their preferred choice (their catchment) and they lived between 150 & 600 yards from the school front door.