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?

I agree with @wildbhoysmama - good schools aren't necessary about where they're located. The East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire schools are good - for kids who don't need too much help or support for learning. I grew up in one of the roughest council estates in Glasgow and went to a school in East Renfrewshire under placing request - it was a great decision for me because I've always been academic, it was less so for my two brothers who weren't and really struggled with the pressure to perform well.

I now live in what would be considered a nice, middle class area and have chosen (by placing request) to put my DC in a school with a very mixed catchment - on the edge of a very deprived area, not the local "nice" primary school. My kids need nurture and support in school that my chosen school are very equipped to give them. Even if they had no support needs I'd still send them to the same school because it has a really lovely ethos, an incredibly smart headteacher and the teaching staff are excellent. They are flourishing in the school environment in a way the just wouldn't in a "nice" school in a "nice area.

Even living in a "sink" estate parents have the choice to send their children elsewhere and unless the school is full they'll be given a place. I guess what I'm hearing is that in practice that's not too different in England, but schools mostly run at full capacity where in Scotland there's room for manoeuvre.

Average infant class sizes aren't 25 -that is the maximum for P1 or composite! The average is 15.5 but that's very skewed by the "rural school of 2". Max for P2 and 3 is 30 and max for P4-7 is 33.

www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/TrendClassSizes

I'm afraid that's not true. The average infant class in 2016 was exactly the same as the average primary class (which is 23.5 children, so effectively 24).

Again, I think a lot of Scottish posters are taking their own small town experiences and applying them to the whole country.

The central belt has always had a lot of placing requests but last application round saw a huge amount of them being rejected. This had a knock-on effect through various councils.

Looking at the raw data, non composite P1 classes seem to have an average of 21.3, P2 is 24.5. That includes those classes with more than one teacher; if you assume, for ease, that those classes with more than one teacher have 2 teachers (reasonable assumption) then p1 is 20.88 per teacher.

”Average infant class sizes aren't 25 -that is the maximum for P1 or composite!”

My point holds even more then- if the Scottish system can afford that level of staffing, that’s why such flexibility is possible.

I wouldn't assume it's better in other countries. In Belgium one year, schools had rows and rows of parents waiting outside schools to register as they were allowed to register at any school in their language community.
In Paris, I've heard of people renting tiny studios in smart areas with good schools.

I live in Wales and don't have children, but my impression is that everything is generally fine in rural areas, but you get problems in places like Cardiff where there are big differences between the schools. No academies or grammar schools here.

@Gwenhwyfar
In wales it depends if the LA has prioritized catchment above sibling link or not. In the areas where catchment comes first, most families are settled and happy as the local children get into the local school - if they want that.
The sibling link really caused problems - as families got a place in a smaller school, then moved out of area.
There are big differences between the schools though as you say - from 'needs improving' to 'outstanding'.

I am well aware that education is about more than exam results but I'll take the all As in their exams and encourage mine to have a wide range of extra curricular experiences to give them any necessary rounding
I am not an expert in education to me the safest option it is move into a good catchment (and I am aware of a lot of teachers among the parents at my kids school)
Other people must do what they think best
Having grown up in a poor area I can however testify that can be a very difficult environment for clever kids

It seems the scottish system has more capacity in it, making it less of a problem in the first place.

There's a big problem with secondary schools hitting in England soon, and London has already got it starting - not enough places for the number of children, and those places not being where the children live.

In our town, there's aparently only enough secondary places for 2/3 of the children currently in state primary schools in Year 4. (I have a DC in year 3 so will hit the second wave of this lack of capacity). There's 2 'comps' and there's 1 girls grammar, but even with those, there's not enough places. They need 1/3 of the kids to either go private, or pass the 11+ and take a place in one of the grammars in another town. (there's no grammar for boys here). And they need all of the children currently being privately educated at primary level to stay private.

Building work is currently going on at one of the comps, this should add some of the capacity needed, but not enough.

Of course, if my DS does pass the 11+ and take a grammar place in the boys school in the next town, as we wouldn't have requested our nearest state school, we won't get free transport - even though the council needs many parents to make this decision to make the lack of places less of a crisis. This does mean there's a financial issue with who takes the boys grammar places, as it's expensive to pay for travel compared to using the local comp schools. (Approximately £60 for child's monthly ticket to the next nearest town) We can afford to not make this a deciding factor for if our DCs do the 11+ or not, but not everyone can and it's very unfair. But that's a whole extra level of shitness!

Meanwhile in Canada you have to register for some schools in person on a given day. So my friend queued from 4am in six inches of snow (she was around 75th in the queue, for 80 places).

I tried to get my daughter into a different school to the one her brother goes to and her other siblings went to. It was a good school but has gone badly downhill.

Sadly she didn't get our first choice. That school is a 20 minutes walk away. The crappy school she got into is across the road, so I guess that and the sibling link is why she didn't get in.

So she is stuck going to a crap school. She was put forward for a full bursary at a private school, but unfortunately she didn't get in.

It’s not paradise in Edinburgh. For a start, 25% of students are privately educated. I don’t think anywhere in England can claim that. This says something about City of Edinburgh schools.

My niece has just gone into S1, and they had a few years of stress and uncertainty, with changing catchment areas due to new schemes. They worked very hard to dodge the Gracemount bullet too. They wouldn’t have found the English system any harder or less certain.

You can’t always believe all the anecdotes you read here or elsewhere.

In my little town, hardly any middle class kid goes to their catchment primary. Their parents show how caring they are by selecting the school with the most awkward transport arrangements, and preferable all their LOs at different schools. Only a lazy and uncaring parent would take the easy way out.

Edinburgh does have quite a high proportion of private schools but the 25% figure I think is inaccurate - I think it represents the proportion of secondary school pupils in Edinburgh schools who are in private, which is different from Edinburgh pupils as there are both boarding schools and fairly large numbers of pupils bused in from outside Edinburgh.

I think one of the most unfair thing about the English state system is that religious families have twice the choice that non-religious families have. I only got priority in my nearest school, my neighbour got priority in the nearest school and the nearest 'faith' school (along with transport costs to get there). Now in my mind that is discrimination.

There is an excellent school in a very deprived area of my city. Only none of the local children are able to go to it because it has very strict religious priorities in admissions.

Walking, to be fair that is exactly the same in Scotland, where AFAIR, catholic families have a choice of catholic or catchment schools, whereas other families have catchment only.

One of the problems in Scotland is the artificially high house prices for good schools catchment areas. Plus people rent in good catchment areas to get kids into perceived good schools then move outwith catchment.

Plus in Edinburgh a huge number of parents choose private education which takes the pressure of the LA to provide places for all school age children.

Actually looking upthread - the 25% is a modest figure for no of children in private education - it's approaching a third some years! I have friends who work in the private education sector so know the data

Interestingly that's bitten our school in the ass in the last few years codswallopandbalderdash - there used to be more kids either going private from the outset, or moving to private part way through primary. The numbers doing both have dropped quite a bit.

We're about to lose a sizeable proportion of our already titchy playground to allow an extension; redrawing catchment isn't really an option without a huge move as all of the neighbouring schools are pretty much full too.

cantkeep I think faith schools in Scotland are less strict about the rules surrounding faith for admissions - or at least they are in my LA - I am not religious, DD has never been baptised/christened or set foot in a church other than for weddings & christenings of friends & family yet she attends the faith school in our catchment.

Whiskey, that's exactly the same as many supposedly 'faith' schools in England too. Many 'CofE' primaries in particular have intakes which are almost identical to non-faith schools BUT once they become popular / over-subscribed / do well the 'faith' part comes into play and can be used quite subtly to shed 'rather more difficult' families, for example the ones who are too disorganised / chaotic to accumulate signatures to say they've attended school every month for X years.

AFAIK the difference is that you can have a situation in England where the only available schools are faith schools - less common in cities I'd imagine but there was a poster recently where all of the local schools (i.e. within many miles) were CofE. There was no non-faith option. I'm not aware of that happening in Scotland although it may do.

Statistically,

I can imagine a situation where schools were all NOMINALLY C of E: this is often the case in rural areas, where the church was the first organisation to build schools, so still has its name on what are now community schools with community-based admissions criteria (EHCP, LAC, siblings, distance).

Situations where all school are SELECTIVELY C of E, ie where someone who is not C of E cannot get admitted because of admissions priorities - are likely to be very much rarer.

COfE schools are open to the whole community. While some may have places for church children, some are the opposite and prioritise non-church children

I know a vicar who couldn’t get his children into his own school. The rational was that they could be salt and light in secular schools, and the children that took their places could benefit from a COfE education. Win-win.

While faith schools cause much anguish amongst mumsnetters in England, they aren’t on the radar screen in Scotland at all (or non-Dom schools to RCs). They are mutually invisible.

StatiscallyChallenged we don't have that issue because we don't have Church of Scotland schools our faith schools tend to be Roman Catholic schools with the rest being regular state schools open to all.

Most towns & larger villages in my LA have a RC primary school but not smaller villages with only 2 RC secondary.

DD didn't even attend a RC primary as there wasn't one in our village & she attended a non-denominational school for 1st & 2nd year as the catchment RC high school wasn't presented as an option even to catholic children as there was no transport other than parental or public & being rural stuck in the middle of nowhere that wasn't reliable or regular.

“I'm not aware of that happening in Scotland although it may do“

I don’t know about the whole country... but usually for primary there’s two catchment areas you’re in, non denominational and faith school, the faith school here covers the catchment for 4 non denominational ones, other towns it’s more others less... based on population and things like transport. Then the same at secondary.

Faith schools can be hard to get into at primary level, the one nearest me is often oversubscribed and turning pupils away...

And you’re unlikely in most areas to get in s faith secondary if you aren’t coming from one of the feeder primaries.

So usually the opposite, pupils applying don’t get in rather than them being the only option.

Are there really that many crap schools in England that people can't send their kids to their catchment school? In our area there are 8 feeder primaries for the local secondary and it's very rare for for them not to go to their catchment school. As I said upthread, there are good and bad teachers in every school and I can't imagine a school being so bad that you couldn't bear to put your kids there!

However, it's maybe different in England.