School catchment area

[TheJoyousRobin]

What’s your opinion on school catchment areas ?

Should parents only apply for the schools most local to them even if their ratings aren’t as good as schools that require travelling a little further ?

Are parents being unreasonable for wanting their children to attend the best school even if outside their catchment area ? Is this fair or unfair on their guaranteed entrance ?

Does your area have strict catchment criteria ?

If some schools weren't so shit and falling apart then yeah I think everyone should go to their nearest school. Exceptions for religious schools or SEN schools where the children/family's can demonstrate their child has SEN or that they are genuinely religious. Perhaps the parents could sit a short exam for religious schools.

However, no one wants their kid to go to a crap school so I think it's fair to let everyone have a chance at applying to the good ones

Is this your homework? It reads like you're either doing a project or research for an article

What do you think?

All that will do is push up house prices in the catchment area as middle class parents will move into the area to get the kids into the school then can move back out. Ours is 6 months residency so people rent for 6 months vs 7 years of school fees.

What I would do is standardise school holidays and remove the sibling link for secondary school. Everyone is free to apply to any school and the decider is distance. I don't necessarily think forcing kids to go to a rough school is a good idea, rather we need a system that keeps like kids together be that by having less but larger schools sites where challenging kids can be grouped together in a separate block.

This

I live in London where most schools don't have catchment areas; most go by distance from school (though I can think of one where it's literally a lottery)

Catchments are only really useful here (and I suspect in other places with very high population densities and pretty good public transport links) when they mean that you can no longer get eldest child in then all siblings regardless of where you move to. Instead its catchment siblings/other catchment/other siblings/others; and that really does help keep schools more rooted in local communities, and reduces school run congestion.

Living within a catchment is however often not enough to get a place - if more DC live in a catchment than there are places in the school, then some will need to go elsewhere. You can't always enlarge schools in cities (literally no space) and there may well be enough places in other schools within a reasonable distance. So guaranteeing a catchment place could be a very expensive option.

We live in an area with set Priority Admissions zones. So everyone has prioity for one school. Most of the time its the closest, but they aren't circular (eg DDs school catchment goes 5 miles in one direction but less than a mile in another... but there's another school in that direction so it is fair).

You are free to apply to other schools... but most people end up at their catchment school.

The positive of this is there is more certainty in the system. However, house prices can be higher in the "better" catchments (but there's also social housing in them).

I grew up in London. A few years after I started Secondary, a "black hole" developed around the area I lived in... too far from any of the Secondary schools to get a place. They were being bussed all over the place... including out in the countryside! This is what admissions zones helps to prevent.

i’d walk over broken glass
and certainly the heads of other children
in order to get my children in to whatever school i think is best for them

and i did just that 😆

Why shouldn’t people apply to schools further away if they prefer them?

They won’t get in unless there is space for them, the people who live closer will get precedence.

I am more concerned that schools whose running costs are state funded can restrict places based on parents religion.

What us your context?

I think its the next step from outpricing private schools to be honest. If you believe that rhetoric you should also believe that buying an expensive house in a good catchment area is also wrong abd purchasing privilege.

Is that you ‘insert name of current Secretary of State for Education here’?

I don’t think any parent is unreasonable for wanting the best for their child and of course they should apply for the schools they want. However, they can’t really complain if they’re far away/out of catchment and don’t get a place because the school filled up with those who live closer. The real problem is though that no schools should be so bad that people feel their local school is not good enough. Schools need to be properly funded so that people don’t need to look at out of catchment options.

Thanks for your opinions. Genuinely just curious after a conversation I had with a family member regarding catchment.

What do you think would improve the situation ?

Haha maybe ;)

The situation won't change until all schools are safe, well funded and fully staffed.

However you can never fully remove the "snob factor". Sometimes its just perceived differences not actual differences.

Freedom of choice is important. Parents should be allowed to apply for a school of their choice.However many don't get in even when fairly close.if Schools are popular then there will be less places to go round

I grew up in the US and where I lived you went to your local school unless there were exceptional circumstances. And if it was a big year tough they found room. And of course you often picked your housing near a better school if possible, but in our town there wasn't much between them.
When I had my kids here I was shocked it wasn't the same. My son did not get into the three nearest schools to us. The one offered was across the borough, at least a 15 minute drive, and was 'adequate' rather than the three rated 'excellent' where we lived.

My area use catchments still. Our catchment school is our 4th nearest and non-walkable.

Most schools here that aren't religious etc have a straight line distance priority admission, and the furthest distance offered is different each year. So no set catchment. And yes some schools are better than others but it's not a one size fits all situation, some people will go for one school over another for many different reasons. There are a few secondaries near us, some are better than others but one definitely seems to suit arty, quirky kids more and the other is quite straight academic. So you don't just automatically pick the one with the highest results etc.

I absolutely think it's a scandal that there aren't enough good schools to go round and hope this will improve after the tories go out but you can't blame people for choosing one school over another and they are not cheating any system to get in as this is very hard to do.

We are rural and basically each village or group of near villages has a school and the catchment is those villages.
Few are oversubscribed so some people don’t use their nearest- eg my neighbour uses the one in her parents village as they provide childcare for her so makes life easier.

It’s not very competitive so you can pretty much get in anywhere, they are all part of the same trust so practically identical anyway apart from uniform colour and some slight variations on wraparound availability and start times etc. They all have the same Ofsted rating (Good with one Outstanding).

We have applied for our nearest 3, one walkable and 2 will need a car. We really want the walkable one but purely for practical reasons as they are all lovely (teeny tiny) schools.

Correct!

We are in London and school places go to those living up to a certain distance away, which changes each year. We wanted our dcs to go to a specific school which is one of the best in the city, so we sold our house and rented a small flat in the same street. We lived there for 3 years and then bought a house 15 mins walk away, once both dcs had got a place and started there. Our house is very local to the school and we walk there, but it would have been too far to get a place at that school, and we couldn't have afforded a house right next to the school.

That's funny as that is what the current system claims to be.

You can apply for any school you like (the choice part), but the reality is that in most areas with full schools really your only likely to get into your catchment school. Here they work off catchment area as some schools priorities the town kids and others the village children. Also being actually able to get to a school is an issue as where we are unless you can drive them some schools don't have bus's for those outside of the catchment areas. And public transport in this part of the UK is rubbish. So there often really isn't a choice unless you move.

Personally I think all schools should be good so parents don't have to worry about it. But that is in an ideal world.

I don't see the problem in parents applying outside of their catchment. What is the downside? They won't get in if there isn't space and those within the catchment will take priority.

I moved to an area that has better schools and made sacrifices re size of house etc. That doesn't mean I'd begrudge someone outside of the catchment getting lucky and snagging a spot.

We don't have catchment areas for secondary schools here. It makes sense as we have multiple grammars, single-sex schools and religious schools and so the nearest school might be completely unsuitable. However it means the traffic is bloody horrendous as parents ferry their kids across the city.