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.

But where would they magic up another classroom from?

It’s different all over the country too. Round here there is genuine choice (we are in a non catchment school because we wanted a large school as opposed to one with mixed year group classes). We would have got a place at all three of our non catchment choices in both years DSs applied. Equally some parents would prefer the smaller school…

Purely because I’m curious, what happens in Scotland if you move? We’ve moved three miles down the road (closer in fact to where DSs are at school and way out of catchment for the previous catchment school)…would we have had to move them if they’d been in the former catchment school? And what if we’d moved between the two application rounds?

No idea. All our our local schools are good but so much snobbery and competition.

Where I live overseas, you get into your local school if you live in catchment. They flex and staff based on enrollment numbers. I’m not saying this is right or wrong, but it’s how it works.

Bur we don't always have one closest school.

And what do Scotland di if there's more kids in catchment than places available?

Also in Scotland and there is far less angst about school places. The English system appears batshit from up here.

Every address is within a catchment, they very rarely change the catchments. Children go to their catchment school or can take their chances with a placing request.

You hear the occasional story of a child not getting a place in their catchment school but it's very rare.

They add in extra classes to cope with bulge years.

Very occasionally there

@00100001

Do your schools only have 1 class per year?

Ours don't

How do they magic up extra Classrooms?

Not always. A school down the way has 3 form entry at primary.

Is it just me who didn’t find the system ‘batshit’ but incredibly straight forward? Log in online, put local schools in preferred order then be allocated one. It’s so over hyped on here it’s the easiest thing ever..? We put a large primary that we were easily in the catchment for and as predicted got a place. No drama.

I think it's a combination of
entitlement - of course I can have it if I want it enough
lack of knowledge - if it's your pfb & you didn't grow up in an area you might not actually know that many people with school aged children just opinions based on historical info. (This was me - went to open days, went with gut instinct & hoped for the best although I was realistic distance wise)
Lack of comprehension about how the system actually works - I have a colleague (originally from o/s to be fair but been here donkeys years who doesn't live in the grammar school county, who's child didn't pass 11+ (7 marks off) & still put 4 grammar schools as 1st 4 choices & 1 other school & left 6th choice blank and is apoplectic about the system 🤷‍♀️

I think everyone might be over idealising the system in Scotland a bit too much. Just the other day there was a row on a mums group I’m on because one mum (in Scotland) said she was going to lie about her address (use her parents) to get her son into a nicer school as the one near her was too rough, and she couldn’t afford to buy property in the nicer school areas. Didn’t sound so diff to me!

This is the issue with running a schools budget on such an absolute shoestring with zero give in the system, zero ability for local authorities to adequately plan for future places, schools packed to the rafters with no space for even one more class, etc etc.

Add to that the catchment distortions due to faith admissions and other issues and it adds up to a system that just doesn't work.

I'm just saying. If you had 2 form entry, with 30 kids in each form. So space for 60 kids. But one year (let's say) there were 5 sets of twins , and a baby boom, plus a few new families moved in.

and there were now 70 kids wanting those 60 spaces...what happens then?

This is another issue. No school should be religious in my view! They should perhaps teach about religions of the world but not be affiliated to one.

Lack of consistency in teaching staff due to underfunding, poor behaviour, unsupportive parents and carers, old facilities, and weak SLT- to mention a few things- make schools poor.

So, where do Scottish/foreign schools magic up classrooms? Or do they squeeze them in? Or have rooms empty some years etc?

@00100001

They're told to home educate

🤣

They go to the catchment school.

Bur we don't always have one closest school.

Our town is split down the middle - to the west go to one school, to the east go to the other. Once all the new entrants have been taken into account they will deal with placing requests and make extra classes if necessary. Our school has been 11, 12 or 13 classes recently. This year because there are fewer P1s coming in than P7s going out, there will be one class less.

In my home country they'll often shuffle the classes around and have one or two composite classes where there's the most give, in these kinds of circumstances. But schools will also often have extra space to add an extra class if there is a huge bulge in one year group.

Some people think they can manipulate the system and get a rude awakening when it turns out they can't. Every year you hear of people convinced that the council "will have to" give them a place if they only put down one school. They just don't entertain the idea that they can simply be allocated another school not on their list.

@Tandora I do know one person who lied about their address, but it wasn't a good school/bad school thing, it was to do with her parents, who do her wraparound care, living next door to a school, and with her shifts it was more practical. I don't agree with it but not my business.

I don't think that's at all on the level of some of the batshittery that seems to go on elsewhere.

Where does the physical classroom come from? Do they have spare ones sitting empty?

Maybe some people can't afford to live near the best schools? You basically pay for your education one way or another in this country.

I don't think it's worth getting het up about primary schools, though - even if it's not the best one, parents are the most important influence on the child so a kid with supportive family will do fine. Secondaries are another matter - a crummy one really could affect how well your child achieves, or in the very least they could have a miserable time if they're a kid who wants to learn in an enivronment where the teachers can't manage the kids who don't want to and lessons are just a tedious series of interruptions and repetitive, disruptive behaviour.

With secondaries in particular it can be hard to afford to live near enough a good one. TBH, we ended up living a bit between two stalls for secondary place but very very luckily go our oldest into our first choice when a change to admissions that year tipped things very slightly in our favour.

But yes, the system in stupid and favours people who can afford to live in the 'right' places.

Same where I am. Very occasionally, if the demographic / housing profile in a catchment changes notably, there will be a consultation and change to the catchment boundaries. Extremely occasionally new schools will be built or a junior changes to a middle school etc.