to be angry that when the local news covers the school allocation lottery they only talk about the rich kids

[2shoes]

example
they go on about this lottery. but seem reluctant to mention that all the poorer dc's will now go to one school. no choice.

Hmm, the only mention of any specific parents was right at the end. The bulk of the article was about a rise in the number of children losing out on their first choice schools.

The thing which concerns me more about the lottery is that you can have more children travelling greater distances to get to their allocated schools rather than walking to the nearest one, which is hardly very green, is it, if they are all having to take the bus or train?

Why will all the poorer children go to one school?

they changed the catchment areas. so that all the more well of kids get ito the better schools. and all the poorer kids on the large estates go to 2 schools. before you still had a chance of getting them into a different school.

I don't understand why it'll be the poorer dc's - surely with a lottery system there's just as much chance a 'poorer' child will get a place as a 'richer' child?

if you live on one estate the school you get is the one nearest..right, so all the dc's on that estate only have that one school.
or am I reading this all wrong??

Seriously 2shoes, a lottery system would give the children from the poor catchment areas a chance of attending the schools in the more well off catchment areas as catchment areas will be irrelevant under a lottery system.

In theory parents apply to whatever school they like and all names go into the lottery draw. The first 100 (or however many places there at the school) names to be drawn out get a place regardless of where they live.

Isn't it that the richer people are more likely to 'lose out' because the houses they bought in the old catchment areas for their fisrt choice school are no longer enough to ensure a place? So you are more likely to find them moaning about it being unfair.

My understanding is slightly different 'fedup'. I thought that what they were doing was applying the 'lottery' within catchment. So that if within catchment there is over-subscription , then the 'lottery' kicks in rather than which house is nearest. Therefore the kids on the estates miss out as they are not in catchment anyway. I saw a report on the Brighton situation which suggested that the lottery thing was brought in to appease 'm/c' parents who live on the edge of 'good catchment' and were never getting in to the school because of the hugely inflated prices paid for houses closer to the school. Therefore this has not been done to help the poor kids at all.

I was under the impression that the lottery thing was across the board ie for all kids in the area. In any case, I think it is all wrong and unfair on all kids. In my fantasy dream world all kids from a particular primary would go up to their nearest bog standard comp (and it would have reasonable standards!) It is such a stresfull transition anyway, IMO it is cruel to separate kids from their friends in this arbitrary way. In my area (I don't live in England!) considerable efforts were made to make the transition easier right from the start of yr 6. Weekly visits for lessons for eg. It makes a huge difference. This is not possible where all the kids will be splitting up to different schools.

The Brighton story is that the 'poor' children used to be able to apply to any school. They now have just one catchment school which is the weakest in the city. The 'richer' kids are the ones in the lottery, with the chance of either one of two good schools or potentially losing out on the lottery and being directed miles from where they live.
The situation is actually very complex because of the distribution of schools and areas segregated by class, and no news report has explained it adequately so far.
Suffice to say, the new system works for some m/c parents, increases uncertainty for other m/c parents and stuffs a whole community of (traditionally) w/c parents...
Main problem is that there are some very poor schools in Brighton.

thats how i saw it. if i was sending my dc to secondry now. we have one school in our catchment area. which has been doing well sinse having a "mix" but will now imo go down hill,(very relieved not to be worring about this) yet if you live in a richer area you get 2 "good" schools to choose from. then if they are over subscribed the lottery system comes in. this is how I have read it.
(beware as they said on the news this system could come to an area near you)

It's times like this I'm happy I live in the sticks and there is only one school my DC can go to!

(also lucky it's a good one )

I had naively assumed the brighton experiment meant all kids from all areas would get a chance at getting in the best schools. evidently not.

Me too Total Chaos.

I don't understand how the number of disappointed parents has increased as the
newspapers are saying it has.

If 2shoes is right its an even bigger farce thane ever.

I thought that the lottery in Brighton meant that children in East Brighton could now get into the 2 good schools (is it Dorothy Stringer and Varndean), whereas they didn't used to be in the catchment area for those schools. From what I understand, lots of the children in the Stanford School area (the people interviewed in the article) now have to be in the lottery for the 2 Hove schools?

I don't know much about it (am adopting head in sand approach at the moment), but I thought that it would benefit poorer children in Brighton?

That's what I thought they meant by changing to "dual catchment", that the 'poorer' kids could apply to the schools favoured by the 'rich' and it would be a lottery as to who got in.

Also officials won't be trying to place kids in their first choice so much, so all the rich parents dying to get their 1st choice instead of 2nd or 3rd may easy be very disappointed. But placing the emphasis on definitely getting them into one of their 3 choices means as long as you're happy with your 3 choices, you should be ok no matter where you live, or how rich/poor you are - which in some ways sounds fairer to me.

It's interesting to see the lottery system continually portrayed as being unfair. I live in an area that has adopted a lottery system (not Brighton btw) and my own DD secured a place last year as a result of it.

Everyone else round here either moves house or go private -not an option for us.

It means that the children in Moulsecoomb (council estate) only get Falmer (poorest performing school. No choice at all. Previously they could have tried to ge a place at other schools.

SOME children in Whitehawk (council estate) get a chance at Varndean or Stringer (best schools) (or maybe neither if the catchments are too big). Rest of the children from Whitehawk get Longhill (not great school).

Most children from middle class Queens Park, Hanover and Fiveways get either Varndean or Stringer (or neither is catchments are too big). This has pleased QP and Hanover parents who did not used to be in the catchment, but displeased Fiveways/Preston Park parents who are local to Varndean and Stringer and now might not get their children in.

Fundamentally, you can't please everyone. However, the new system has simply shifted the unfairness around, not actually improved anything (except in the eyes of QP/Hanover).

There was more to the change in the system than trying to ensure equity - marginal seats were also at stake.

Antartica - problem in Brighton is that there are only two good schools, so equal preference of three is misleading. You get to put down two schools which are fine and one which is not. Therefore getting one out of three isn't necessarily good.

Obviously going to your local school is the ideal (for all sorts of reasons). Hwr, while Brighton has such wealth disparities between areas, there will be some schools which people won't want to send their children to (ie Falmer where free school meals take up is predicted to be about 50%), compared to Stringer (about 10%).

Funnily enough, interest in Brighton College (fee paying school) is apparently significantly up.

Frankly, the whole thing is a f*ck up. The changes and lottery are just tinkering...

A lottery makes a complete mockery of parental choice.

Surely lack of decent schools make mockery of parental choice.

well i think this proves how confusing it if both pollyanna and I don't understand it.

oh and
because there are 2 schools deemed to be the best. one is going to be enlarged to make more spaces for children in the catchment area. so more money spent on a "good* school will mean less spent on struggling schools.

I hate people buying into a catchment area. I have lived in my house for 16 years and people who move three houses down the street 6 months ago are more likely to get a place as they are "closer".
Then they get their kid in and move away again, while making sure they are eligible for a sibling place for their next offspring while they go to live out of borough as "it's nicer but the shcools are not so good".
I am so pissed off that for years my council tax has paid for the local school and someone just waltzes in and can get a place as they are "nearer" and then bugger off.

And the lottery is just a way of shutting parents up and reducing appeals. It is not fair if they change the catchment areas so only certain people can enter the lottery.

All LEA borough children should be put in a lottery for all the borough's schools

I have heard that Brighton college are starting a new y7 intake - I presume this is to cover all of those disgruntled middle classes from Preston Park.

I thought that lots of people from Whitehawk would get into Varndean/stringer - didn't realise that this hadn't changed. (I am still stuck with the Hove schools so nothing has changed for me).