Why do people torment themselves over school places

[Schoolplacechoicemyth]

Im in a local toddler/child social media group.

Every single year there are people on the group who apply wildly optimistically for 2 or 3 oversubscribed schools several miles away from their home, are given the unpopular school they live near and desperately ask how to appeal because they "really love oversubcribed school and absolutely want DC to go there".

They seem completely unprepared for how unlikely it was they'd get a place, baffled that their preference doesn't actually get them the place at the oversubscribed chool, spend weeks/months appealing for schools they have next to no chance of a space at, & complain repeatedly on the group about it. Often the school they live near is fine, its just not the fashionable choice this week.

The local council publish all the info. You can see, easily, how close you need to live to stand a decent chance at a place. All the admission criteria are available.

Why do people do this to themselves!? Do they really think their preference is a factor when applying to a routinely oversubscribed school living miles away? Its like there's some sense of entitlement to a place at the trendy/popular school. I just couldn't torture myself like this. One lady has spent weeks telling her DC they are going to popular school X with their nursery friends. She lives over 5 miles from it & it hasn't taken a non sibling from more than a mile away in over a decade and yet she's bewildered her DC didn't get a space.

Shouldn't the question be asked as to why there is such a difference in schools then? Where I live, not the UK, all the local primary schools are much the same, whatever area they are in, and until recently there was only one large secondary. The other secondary is a Christian school. Of course there are some parents who send their children to boarding school, but most others just trot off to the local one. I would hate a system such as England seems to have.

Shouldn't the question be asked as to why there is such a difference in schools then?
Because the UK has had decades of poor policy, education is a political football, there's been over a decade of cuts to a range of public services, schools have had to plug the gaps in services as well as do more with less.

Some schools are more affected by the impact of the above events than others.

There's also a large problem of recruiting and retaining teachers, support staff can earn more and have better terms in supermarkets than schools, and some schools are more affected by this situation.

I'm in the 'that'll be ok for my kids' camp, rather than them having to have the best of everything

People value different things though and whilst certainly there can be some schools of which there's a huge disparity across the board, some is subjective. Where I live for example there's a small school, some parents love the thought of this, others hate it regardless of the quality of the teaching or any other metric. Another has a good reputation but has zero parking so that limits the people who want it (which isn't a bad thing really as its good to be able to walk to school), another has crappy buildings but tonnes of outdoor space which is appealing to others, and the fourth one has a reputation for a focus on the arts and lots of extra circulars offered which again appeals to some above all else.

All the primary schools in my town were fairly similar in terms of standards,

Except there is no way of knowing that as there are no KS2 tests. So nothing in the public domain or, more disturbingly, on banners outside individual schools!

Then just go to the nearest one

Generally speaking catchment changes are done over a prolonged period here with an overlap few years where children are eligible to go to either the old or the new school. Locally I’ve only known it done for high school catchments so child care / needing to do drop offs and pick ups not an issue.

@Tarantullah thats interesting what you say about parking. My local council (Scotland) has removed all school car parks leaving just minimal spaces for teachers to park and a blue badge space, the idea being that children should be "walk, wheel or cycling" to school.

It's an absolute pain in the arse because although almost every child at that school lives within walking distance they all also tend to have 2 working parents so are dropped off by professional breakfast clubs with vans, child minders, a walking crocodile or grannies from out of area. My street is a car park between 08:45 and 09:15 and 14:30 - 15:15.

Genuine question, why do 'looked after' kids get priority for school places?

Then you'd be randomly allocated if you're not chosen in the lottery

Because they’ve had a shit start in life and so get the first dibs on the best school

Jenny been, some working parents can walk/cycle!

"Scotland has the best entry system due to the catchment areas"

Also Scotland
"Much bigger attainment gap between rich and poor pupils in schools"

Something tells me the two things may not be unconnected.

Wait until your dc get to university age. That will blow your mind, the number of people who want their dc to go to university but have failed to budget for the parent contribution to their loan, then complain about how unfair the system is.

‘Closest school’ would only work if population and schools were evenly distributed (and either extremely flexible in size or very closely matched in size to population needs) either in a non-mobile population with little housing being built or where schools had very significant excess capacity.

Consider a situation where a 1 form entry school is situated close to a 3 form entry school, where there are enough children in the area to fill 4 forms. 85 children have the 1 form entry as closest school. 45have the 3 firm entry as closest school. Are you really suggesting that the 1 form entry should expand to 3 form entry through temporary buildings and employing new teachers, leaving the existing 3 form entry half empty and having to lay some teachers off (the 1 form entry will need 3 teachers; the 3 form will need 2 - there is a need for 1 more teacher than the status quo).

A combination of catchment - larger for the larger school - and preference means that both schools fill to capacity, which is obviously more sensible.

Interesting. I was going to ask about that - the Scottish system, especially in cities, seems to be very likely to entrench advantage for the rich living in better areas (therefore better catchments and better schools) and, critically, disadvantage for poor families living in poor catchments.

I’d be really interested to see, for Glasgow and Edinburgh in particular (though I know the private schools skew the situation there), data for results from each high school compared with measures of the socio-economic profile in its catchment.

But if the local schools have poor oftsed ratings/bullying management ect why would you want your child to attend?

But the system now is unfair. I did my degree not wildly long ago and could live off of the maintenance loan, bursary and a small weekend job because my parents earnt hardly anything. It's becoming less accessible and that's not okay.

@JassyRadlett
That's really interesting to hear. I've not heard of that before. Which areas don't have one and what do they do instead, is it just distance etc?

London, for a start? At least my part of it.

Distance/siblings/looked after/medical need for maintained schools. Faith places screw up catchments massively.

I know over the border into Surrey there are individual schools with feeder primaries and nominal outer/inner catchments but it's not county-wide and consistent, it's set by the individual school which makes things even worse. Some Surrey schools give staff children priority, others don't. Very few primaries there have catchments, some secondaries for and others don't. It's a mess.

Part of the problem is there is no "English" system. Its a myriad of systems happening on the same timescale.

My best friend and I live 4 miles apart. We have fixed priority areas, feeder schools, a lottery school and religious schools.
She has a grammar school and entry per distance.

People want the best for their children understandably.

Most people are not confident enough to understand the capability levels of their children. DH and I both work or worked in higher education, I actually studied educational outcomes as part of my studies. Looking at income levels, and ethnic groups mainly.

We sent our child to the local comprehensive with below average results. We also had a racist incident or two as he is mixed race, plus he had the piss taken out of him for being posh. We are Southerners in the North and he just picked up our accent quite strongly though he was born here. We discussed all these issues at length with him.

He achieved all A grades at A level. I also did something frowned on by MN payment for results.

I knew my child well and was extremely confident in his capabilities.

@Botw1 educational outcome is governed mainly by Mothers educational level, ethnic group and income group. If you are interested the ONS has a ton of data available online. There are always outliers before someone says but my Mum was daft as a brush and we lived in the gutter and I went to Oxford.

@AncientToaster

Yes. Social mobility isn't really a thing

So if you're a middle class parent, in a middle class area with middle class schools to choose from.....

Your kid will be fine regardless

"Genuine question, why do 'looked after' kids get priority for school places?"

A high proportion of looked after kids have additional needs& considerations that don't fit within the traditional entry criteria but need to be prioritised.

Eg they may need to be near a particular school because its not only near their foster home but is also in a location that facilitates family visits. They also have a higher need for stability and continuity so might need to continue at a school where theyve attended nursery, or have a place at a school a sibling attends even though theyve moved to a foster or adoptive home further away. They may need to be in a school where other children of their ethnic or nationality background are well represented.

One of the things about not having catchment areas and people not getting the school they want is you end up with a bunch of well off pushy parents in a not so good school and you get kids from poor backgrounds but with ambitious parents in better schools.

I think the pushy rich parents make a lot of difference in that respect but there are more opportunities for kids from a poorer area to get out too.

It's not enough to scream about how we have great social mobility in England but I do think it would be enough to entrench further in Scotland and have a marked difference compared to England, just by turning the dial up on competition for places rather than a more almost 'accept your lot in life' approach that the Scottish system unfortunately enforces.

Neither system is remotely fair or even, but the reality is a lottery system wouldnt work either because of the implications to kids to get to schools which were further away - especially for those on lower incomes who couldn't afford this.

I think for me, it's probably the fact that parental influence counts for so much in pushing kids that is depressing, because there is clearly a failing here to make up the shortfall where a kid doesn't have any adult really fighting their corner or managing to give that additional encouragement they need.