Aibu as a Scottish person, to wonder wtf at the English school admission system?

[irnbruforlife]

Before anyone starts, I know the Scottish school system isn't perfect. But that's a whole other thread. I'm from north east Scotland. Children go to the school for their catchment area. The odd person will ask for a different school for whatever reason (such as bullying etc.) Their request is accommodated do far as reasonably practicable, but not at the expense of someone on that catchment area. There is no school lottery that I seem to be reading about in England, with children ending up with no placement, or having to go to school 2 hrs away despite living across the road from one, or siblings going to different schools.

Yes, but the effect of the catchment system is that young couples with the money to do so flee to the suburbs
Not in Edinburgh. Most of the most sought after schools in Edinburgh are quite central really.

The data here seems to contradict the figures I already posted, if anyone fancies a very boring Saturday night- far more than 600odd classes of 29 or over.

I’ve spent ages reading this thread so thought I might throw my bit in:
I live in Scotland’s densely populated central belt.
I Don’t think anyone had mentioned that the vast majority of state schools in Scotland are run by the local authority. So there is far less variation in the educational experience than in England. This includes Catholic schools- they include the principles of the faith within their teaching but they are run by the Local authorities too.
The catchment area system is pretty good. It reduces uncertainty for parents and reduces travel/congestion/pollution and helps build local communities compared to the English model.
However. Even with all this, middle class and aspirational parents often take no risks! It’s quite common for young couples to move to the suburbs/a town with the perceived best schools when planning a family to make sure they are in a really good catchment area.
Couple of other wee comments: the narrow minded comment upthread about Gaelic Schools in the cities was fairly ignorant. Many folk move to the cities from Gaelic speaking areas out of financial necessity. I think it’s great their children attend a school that keeps their language and culture alive. Likewise. I know there are many aethiests and agnostics, but they don’t need to be so relentlessly rude in shouting out their disdain for faith schools. Religion means a lot to many people and is important in life - it can’t be extracted from daily life.
Finally, the ridiculous comment about small cities in Scotland having one secondary School- balony!

I live in an area where the schools are completely fucked for admissions. DS is starting school this September. We’ve put the six nearest schools on his application (in distance order) and may well not get any of them. It’s so so stressful. Meanwhile a load of people are driving across our gridlocked town to these schools from miles away because they got their eldest in then moved.

My eldest goes to a school with a Gaelic provision and while I am not sure it really serves much of a purpose it works for us as it keeps the class sizes of the others classes down. The funding comes from a different pot so it allows for a bit more room to breathe if that makes sense. It’s also nice as they do wee joint projects so my dd gets some wider Scottish culture (from a fairly narrow bracket to be fair). I am still not convinced that anyone in Scotland does or has ever called a ladybird a cockleddy. But anyway.

For some balance to the earlier argument that catholic schools are often “better”, the one local to where I work went through a spell of being referred to as the maternity ward. 8 girls all at one time expecting babies. In all my time as pastoral I have NEVER managed an unplanned pregnancy/abortion. I have supported a few with emergency contraception mind you.

I love all these comments about planing for school places in Scotland as here in fife the council has right royally screwed up!
They allowed 4000 houses to be built in our town with another 4000 planned. They have built 3 new primary schools so far with more needed but no new high school 😮
As of the 21/22 school year there will be between 2 and 4 hundred pupils without a high school place, and that's before they build the other half of their planned homes 😱
But according to our council it's not their fault but the government is to blame

This thread is nothing more than an overarching one side good, other side bad argument, in a cloaked nationalist argument.

One differentiation in these two scenarios, the population bubble that then gets into murky waters of immigration and neo-liberalism, it's all tied in to why politics has become extreme.

We are in a situation where "life long dyed in the wool lefties" are now supporting multi national businesses, if in doubt use the basic idpol oppression stack, which you have framed this whole thread on.

Or we could ignore all that and pretend why is my side good and yours bad.

iamyourequal I was not demeaning religious schools, they are important to many, but pointing out to a pp that the mere fact it is a religious school does not make it inherently better- I hate that ridiculous bias that seems to prevail in the central belt.

Have people not said that very thing throughout justanother? It isn’t a simple - ‘this system works and is good but this system doesn’t and is bad’ matter. It is enormously complex and there are issues with both ways of working.

I have an enormous pet hate for the concept that we can lift educational models from other societies and make them work without the deeper structures and ethos to back them up. You could no more put the Scottish system for school places into most of England than you could use the Chinese maths teaching in a school in Stirling.

We only have the illusion of choice really. That's why it gets so stressful. The reality is, in any densely populated area, that those schools perceived as "good" are oversubscribed and are filled with children from the catchment area. So if you aren't catchment you can put it on your form but you'll never get a place there. If you don't put your catchment school on your list and you don't get a place at any of your choices then you can be placed at any school with a place (and that will not be a "good" school). So unless your first choice is either your catchment school, or it's not a very good school if out of catchment, then the chances are your child won't get a place there anyway. In fact, where I live being in catchment hasn't even been enough to guarantee a place at a school as too many children lived in the catchment (epic bad planning). Then you are really stuffed because the only schools that will have spaces for children out of catchment are not the schools you want your child to go to. I've known people to move house to get a decent school after falling foul of this.

Ravenous - are you in Scotland? Most places in England don’t have catchments as such. I don’t have a catchment school - all the nearest schools to me have wildly fluctuating “furthest distance offered a place” which can go down to 200m quite easily.

Most places in England don’t have catchments as such.
Absolute piffle
most counties in England have catchments
only in certain cities with complicated admission systems are catchments not used

Here in Hampshire the catchment maps are all on the country council website
places in England don’t have catchments as such.www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/findaschool?search=yes

Trying to imagine what city in Scotland only has 1 high school. My town of 48k used to have 5 but they were replaced by 3 "super schools" a few years ago.

Ridley, if that was the case we would have got our local school (a whole 250 yds away). We weren’t in catchment so others further away got in due to being in catchment or sibling rule.

We don’t live in London or any other big English city

Random
Near here the school bus for one school picks up in the driveway of another
and then drives the 3 miles to drop the kids off

Catchments are as they are
but you WILL get into your catchment school

Actually I've checked. The smallest city in Scotland is Stirling with a population of just over 36k. They have 7 high schools. So no.

I was brought up in a town with 1 high school as i said earlier

We didn’t - although it a high birthdate year.

Not an issue though as I prefer the school she did get and the distance is similar to our catchment school.

Still 4 times further than our closest school though which seems daft to me.

We have to drive to school and get passed by loads of people going the opposite way.

Not very environmentally friendly.

And I am now thinking she may not get into catchment high school. Due to the high birth year and notnattending a feeder school.

@TalkinPeece I think Hampshire also has some really clear boundaries, also. For e.g. the Wildern/Wyvern/Swanmore College catchments - it doesn't matter how much you might want to go to Wildern or Wyvern if you live in Bishop's Waltham, you will not get a place on distance grounds. Whereas Swanmore College often takes from Whitely, etc., because their children have attended linked primary schools.

Demented I'm sure there are towns in Scotland with just one high school. It's ridiculous that a PP suggested that there are cities with just one. That sounds like something someone who's never visited Scotland might say.

I work in multiple schools across our county. In my experience the majority of classes that have more than 31 pupils are P7 and it’s so they are all together rather than some pupils in a P6/7 class.

My experience is that if at all possible Heads will resist putting P7's and P1's in composite classes. Not always possible, but if it can be done they will.

The difference between the two is light and day. The only thing I will say is that the 'if in catchment you must take them' can be disruptive if new kids move to the area mid year and that takes class sizes over the limits. A mid year reshuffle is a nightmare and that just wouldn't happen in the English system.

That said, overall having worked in both I think the Scottish system is much simpler. And generally gives more actual choice than lots of over subscribed areas than the English system.

I was brought up in a smallish town with only 1 high school, although there were originally 8 primaries. The region (as it was then) shut one, then had to knock down the other in that area and build a bigger one, as there were too many kids for that one school. All the towns in that area have only 1 high school. It isn't that unusual.

No, I'm in England, most places I know in England (outside of London) have catchment areas!

All the towns in that area have only 1 high school. It isn't that unusual.

There's a difference between towns having 1 high school and the suggestion that cities only had 1.