....to be unsurprised the BBC called the London Oratory a "prestigious private school" when it isn't?

[doorkeeper]

The London Oratory school is in the news because there's been a minor blaze there (nobody hurt) and a pupil has been taken in for questioning.

I was idly listening to PM on Radio 4, and they described the school as a "prestigious private school". Except it isn't, of course. It's a state-funded school. Except, again, it's functionally a free private school for posh and/or famous people that most ordinary mortals couldn't hope to get their kids into. I found this burst of accidental honesty from the BBC quite refreshing.

I'm sick of the posh London schools that are state-funded but that are effectively free private schools because of the way they massage their admissions. The now-disgraced former head of Holland Park School was taking HPS firmly in that direction, I know that a few other West London schools operate in the same way. I would love to see Ofsted - who were useless re the HPS scandal until it was too late - address this in some way. All children, even the ones whose parents aren't rich or famous, should have equal access to local schools, regardless of income, religion or parental connections.

AIBU to enjoy this bit of accidental honesty from the BBC?

Interesting straw man. No, I'm stating a fact. That schools that are able to use any form of selection - academic, faith, house price or a combination - practise social and economic selection by the back door.

My own view is that faith admissions distort catchments and further skew house price impacts, particularly as the most competitive faith schools also have an element of house price selection too - either because the intake open to non-faith places is much smaller (most CofE schools) or because the competition between churchgoers is fierce (many of the more popular Catholic schools). I'm also in favour of admissions that have a degree of demographic and academic "smoothing" by having specific quotas for eg children eligible for PP or FSM.

The priests and teachers of poor young Catholics need to raise awareness in their communities and schools of this option available to their young people.

But would they even think about it, seeing the school takes from such a wide geographical area? They might even be keen for their parishioners to apply for local Catholic schools. And while parents may be able to fulfil the criterion of church attendance, being the siblings or children of former pupils might be a little harder!

For the Oratory primary - it would be difficult to see how its catchment (the priority parish being a handful of streets in South Kensington) wouldn't dramatically skew its intake. And this is borne out by its FSM figures which are even lower than the Oratory's.

The area Immediately around the primary school is all housing trust. Sutton Dwellings and Samuel Lewis Trust have quite large estates. Though seeing children coming out of the school in their retro uniforms, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a private school.

Oratory Primary is right on the edge of its own priority catchment - I think Sutton Dwellings just makes it in. It would be interesting to know how many children attending the school are drawn from there, but the school's own figures show how few are eligible for FSM.

Anyway it's a tiny school so will be at best a blip in the Oratory's admissions, but it's certainly a more demographically exclusive school than other nearby primaries such as Marlborough (which has 35.4% FSM) or even St Joseph's (14.8%) and Christ Church (16%) - the latter two also being oversubscribed faith schools.

And now, having spent way too much time delving into the admissions criteria and student demographics of RBKC thatn anyone who doesn't live there should, I'm going to take a break!

State schools should not be selective based on religion. Why should children living next to the school not be allowed to attend because their parents are the wrong religion?

Of course faith is a worse selection criteria than distance, everyone should be able to go to a nearby school. They shouldn't be able to go to a school 15 miles away just because their parents are the right religion.

Remember that most are church schools that have been acting in co-operation with the state since the late 1940s. They are not state schools with permission.

The state does not own them, and would have to buy out the land and buildings at going market rate, under compulsory purchase.

I doubt that is affordable right now

I don’t think it’s so much the wrong religion. If you’re not part of the religion, I don’t think the school would be particularly attractive. It’s more that followers of the religion are excluded because they’re not seen to be religious enough. I’m sure there’s enough Catholic families within walking distance of the school to fill it!

The CofE primary school my DD goes to in London selects by SEN, siblings, staff and distance.

The Diocese got rid of the faith criteria in her school and many other schools.

The result is that the most practised religion is Islam.

The nearest secondary school for her is CofE and is selective on various criteria including but not just religion. However she could still get in on distance.

In regards to house prices - London had lots of hidden social housing flats as well as bigger estates.

I mean, a lot of this is inaccurate. Criteria include the feeder school, siblings of former pupils as well as current pupils, plus the one they're consulting on now about the children of former students. They are praiseworthy in using a ballot to prioritise within criteria rather than distance or catchment but that's not the same as the only criteria being a cert of Catholic practice.

It definitely isn't too diverse in terms of social class when you look at the number of children eligible for free school meals. EAL also looks slightly low for inner London

Catholic secondaries near me vary quite a bit - one has feeder primaries, then dioscean catchment, then distance as a tiebreaker; another is baptised Catholics but then using evidence of practising as a tie breaker with those who worship more frequently getting priority, and within each of those frequency categories, attendance at a feeder primary is the tie break. Another is more straightforward as practising with distance as the tie break.

Almost all the Catholic primaries round here have distance as a tie break.

I would be very much in favour of much more standardised, clear and simple admissions criteria across all school types! It's mad how arcane they get and how different schools' criteria can interact to really skew the picture on local admissions - so if you're in between two popular Catholic schools but one admits on feeder primaries that you didn't attend, and the other on parish boundaries so you went to one of their local primaries but you live the wrong side of the parish line, you could miss that one too.

No, I can just read 🙂

The "order of priority" is what is meant by "admissions criteria". And the Oratory has plenty, and would like more.

It’s only a shame that more schools aren’t like LOS with motivated parents and schools that take a real pride in their students, reputation and legacy.

How do you explain the FSM numbers being so low, and the prior attainment figures being so high (and low prior attainment being almost non-existent?)

@JassyRadlett has it occurred to you that perhaps there are not loads of practising Catholics with children in London?

If we were that inclined we could have got DD into a Catholic primary school as they have spaces so now accept children of any and no religion to make up numbers.

Btw I was looking at the secondary destination of kids from one of the schools. It appears that they while they get boys into London Oratory school and girls into Greycoats, the most popular schools are the high achieving local ones.

Ah that's interesting, our local Catholic schools (also London, albeit SW rather than W) are nearly as oversubscribed as the Oratory. But why would lack of Catholics affect either wealth or prior attainment?

But regardless, my point stands - which is that the Oratory isn't terribly representative based on either ability or socioeconomic demographics, despite the PP's assertion.

It's not opinion, it's the school's own data as they report it to the government. No amount of childish name-calling changes the numbers.

I've nothing against the school and what's happened is horrible. I've got a good friend with children there whose education this year has already been a mess because of RAAC and this will make it so much harder and more stressful. I spoke to her today and am full of sympathy for the situation they're in.

But that doesn't mean we should accept fairy tales that bear no relation to reality about the school's population. It's a disproportionately well-off and high-attaining student population.

The BBC website entry does not refer to the school as private. Don't tar all BBC on one inaccurate reference on radio.

The school is selective in that you have to be Catholic to get in, and be committed to a number of church events etc. I have no problem with that at all. People with no knowledge of how state education began in England just do not realise that it was the RC and Anglican churches who first gave children who otherwise would have received no education the ability to learn to read, write so they could advance themselves. The people who say religion should not be involved in education really don't get how expensive it would be to replace all the Catholic, Anglican or other faith schools. The Catholic schools in particular are built on church land. The state would either have to buy it up, or build new school places elsewhere.