Romesh Ranganathan - School Places & Entitlement

[FightingFish]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewgj1ry9x7o.amp

I’ve seen this story popping up a lot on social media and we are only seeing one side of the story. Schools publish their allocations policy and apparently RR has moved house since his older children were allocated a place. He obviously didn’t consider the implications of moving outside of catchment at that point. There are only so many places, AIBU to wish that he would acknowledge that? I also feel sorry for the kid, if my father was a multi millionaire, I’d rather he shelled out on a place at a private school instead of bleat on about how hard done by he is!

I respect that he’s using the state system when he obviously doesn’t have to do so.

I don’t respect that he’s clearly using his influence to try and get special treatment.

Schools publish their allocations policy

But do people always read them? I read our local policies at the relevant times and they were very clear, and still heard people in the playground saying rubbish. I even had one teacher at the school the oldest went to telling me they would ‘see what they could do’ for my youngest.

I'm torn. I think it's true that he ought to have considered catchment rules when moving house and obviously, as a wealthy person he had more options than many parents when it comes to education. OTOH, it's not that unreasonable to expect to send siblings to the same school - it's also not his fault that education is in the state it's in. The real fault lies with successive governments who haven't invested as they ought to have done in our schools, so that they are both plentiful and good!

Moved house to a posher part of Crawley, five miles down the road and is a former teacher… so should know how these things work. It’s a shame that having siblings at the same school hasn’t guaranteed a place, but presumably it’s because other children who meet more of the criteria are above his child on the list. Ordinary people and their children miss out on their preferences every year, it’s not new.

It’s a shame but not uncommon, most secondaries take children in catchment with siblings, children in catchment without siblings, then children out of catchment with siblings, but it varies from school to school.
Some people don’t realise that siblings aren’t that high a priority.
(Edit to add when I say “with siblings” I mean siblings already at the school!)

It does seem very unreasonable however to be offered none of your 4 choices! I agree with him that that’s not ok and I think he’s got a platform to complain about this where most ordinary parents in his position couldn’t.

This is true people don’t read them, and lot of people seem to misunderstand them and think that by putting X first they have more chance of getting Y etc

What does he expect them to do? Bend the school admission laws to accommodate him? There’ll be loads of kids that didn’t get their first choice just because of how places are ranked in line with the published policy.

It’s set up to be a level playing field for everyone and that means that some people will end up disappointed. Middle class parents always deal with it badly and dramatically but I’m sure he’ll find a work round, whereas others may not have to means to.

I’m not sure of the ages of his children, but where we are it didn’t (when mine were that age) count if one was in the 6th form. So a Y7 and a Y11 sibling would count (ie Y6 and Y10 at the time of application) as siblings. A bigger age gap than that would not.

Again, read the policy Romesh!

I didn’t realise he had moved house since his younger children started. I am fully aware this would alter the admissions process. I listened to all the callers on the Jeremy Vine show when they were discussing this. For all of them, although I have sympathy, the school had clear reasons why the child wasn’t offered a place and clearly other children came above them in the admissions criteria. Schools have a limited number of spaces which is specified in law. There was even one mum complaining that one of her twins got the local secondary and one didn’t… but it transpired that the twin who got a place had additional needs so came further up the admissions criteria. Like I said, I do have some sympathy, but with all the awful things happening in the world, a child having to travel a bit further than they’d like and going to a different school to their peers is hardly the worst thing that could happen. RR moving house has even less sympathy from me now on this.

If his 4 choices were his 4 closest schools I will be sympathetic.

However people do list schools miles away then moan they don't get in.

He definitely moved house in 2021, he talked about it in interviews/on podcasts and even wrote an article for a newspaper about it.

A lot of people don’t like it when people live in catchment for admissions then move out after their place is secure and use sibling priority to get the younger ones in.

If he could have moved later then he would have all kids in the same school. Nobody else’s fault that he didn’t read the criteria properly or consider living in a location where some of his kids who make their own way there and back.

He used to teach my friend maths. I wonder if the school he's been allocated is the same one he used to teach at 😆
Actually I assume he's talking about primary school since he's worrying about school runs.

The fact he's famous is irrelevant. Anyone would be struggling with multiple kids in different schools.

If anything the fact he's famous is useful in drawing attention to how messy school places can get and how difficult it can be for parents.

I think anyone in his shoes would feel the same.

I bet there are threads on here of people complaining about the same thing. Just because he is famous doesn't mean he can't complain about the system. Most people know it has issues - just look on MN every year after the national school allocation day..

Glad I'm not the only who thinks his famous is irrelevant!

I have some sympathy for him about this, the policy could be the issue.

I don't understand this idea of the 'posher part of Crawley'? Is this a new name for Horsham??!!

@FightingFish I think that may have been before his second child started secondary school as he’s only about 13 now. The location of their new home didn’t seem to be an issue for his admission but it seems the rules have changed since then and having siblings at the school no longer has bearing on placement allocation which is impacting the youngest child.

He has said before he believes in the state system, with he and his wife both having worked as teachers, which is why they have chosen to send their children to state school rather than private.

Ultimately most parents would be upset to not be allocated a place for their child that wasn’t any of their 4 preferences and it does seem an unusual change of policy to not include sibling placements as part of the consideration of places, it causes logistical issues for a lot of families.

Nothing he had said makes him entitled, he’s a frustrated parent who is struggling to get answers from decision makers and ultimately wants the best for his child which he believes is for all of them to attend the same school.

Boo hoo. He thought for some reason his kid would not be subject to normal admission procedures. He thought he could continue to signify his luvvie left wing credentials by using state school. But only the state school /s He wanted. They’re all full, he got bumped to the one available. As do thousands of others. Using state funds when he could easily pay for it himself. But couldn’t do that god no the optics the optics! 🙄 heart bleeds.

I disagree that his celebrity status is irrelevant and he know it too! Joe Blogg’s son in the same boat would not be featured in a BBC article because his son didn’t get into the same school as his siblings.

Mumsnet is full of people complaining about this sort of thing and getting a much more sympathetic hearing than this guy is! I know his kids are quite close together in age, so if there is a sibling criterion it should apply here. Do we know that he definitely moved recently? I find it hard to believe that he didn’t understand the admissions process!

It is irrelevant in the way it has shown here that it doesn’t matter who you are the system fails people. So I guess in that the sense the system can be seen as fair.

And the idea he should go private (as suggested by some people) just because he has money is ridiculous. I assume he pays his taxes he is just as entitled to have his children educated in the state sector as anyone else.

I always assumed siblings would be top priority

@FightingFish he didn’t write the article. He spoke about it on his podcast as a thing happening in his life currently, as he and many podcasters do every week. Podcasters talk about their lives and discuss issues that many people deal with. He was presumably asked for a comment by the BBC and he gave one. Maybe doing so will have some influence, maybe it won’t. It’s a really boring story and no idea why the BBC thought it news worthy, also no idea why you’re so bothered by it. He’s done nothing wrong.

If anything he’s trying to highlight that the criteria for allocating school places is flawed, it’s an issue that affects lots of families and the lack of communication from decision makers is extremely frustrating.

In some areas its along the lines of Siblings in catchment, catchment, non catchment siblings, non catchment. Means that children can get a local school place and not be shunted out by siblings living a distance away.

Whichever system a school closes, some children will miss out. Not everyone can attend the most popular schools.