I live in a medium sized town with 3 secondary schools.
All three schools are great, but unfortunately there aren’t enough places for all the children in the town. Every year around 50 children end up being allocated very undesirable schools in neighbouring towns.
Regarding primary schools, I think we have about 8 or 9 - almost all excellent and plenty of places for all children in the town.
Despite this, four or five years ago a new primary, a free school, was set up. It has no green space, only a tiny AstroTurf, hasn’t had a proper inspection yet so no-one really trusts it, and it has been very undersubscribed. A lot of the pupils attending don’t actually live in our town - they come from neighbouring towns that have less good schools, as it’s the only school in our town that has spare places for out-of-catchment kids.
All three of the secondaries mentioned above have become academies in the past five or so years. Hardly anyone realised that one of the secondaries, which I’ll call School X, is now owned by the same trust that owns the free school primary.
In what I can only assume is an effort to attract more pupils to the dwindling free school, this trust has now announced that pupils from the free school will have first priority for places at secondary School X.
AIBU to think this is totally wrong? They’re playing on people’s fears that their child will be allocated a terrible secondary half an hour away in another town to bribe them to send their child to an untested primary school.
Also, it will mean that children from other towns (one of which is in a different county) will get priority for places at School X over children who actually live in this town.