Labour reviewing school admission criteria

[JustAlice]

"Sir Keir Starmer plans to update the Equality Act to give public authorities a new duty to consider a person’s “socio-economic background”.
The changes could mean that schools are forced to give pupils from a working-class background priority when applying for school places, according to Conservative research, instead of judging applications based on how far away from a school someone lives."

Last year BBC had articles on how Brighton and Hove Labour council implemented similar policy, and now substancial % of school places goes to children on FSM instead of childre living closer to the school, making average % of FSM in them closer to the council average.
Protests didn't lead to anything.

If Starmer is going to rollout this model for the whole country, I'm torn, because though I'm against class division and think that current model encourages it

1. I strongly disagree that the families on less than minimal wage income are the only working people in the country. Maybe call them deprived to be honest.
2. In Brighton, faith schools are still not impacted.

YABU - we should be happy about this
YANBU - not a good idea

They can't afford to not gaf as they are hugely unpopular atm.
Could you imagine Sir Kier saying "island of strangers" just a year ago? Also backtracking on every unpopular major decision.
My impression is they are really trying to listen right now..

People also laughed when posters suggested VAT on private healthcare might be a possibility once VAT on education was implemented. Lord Kinnock has now said that private healthcare should be taxed.

I think it's even more sinister than this.
With VAT on private schools there is an exodus and higher income families are moving to the better state ones and of course this impacts catchment areas but also reduces VAT take which Labour expected. I believe at the end of last academic year net tax impact was already zero (don't remember where I read it), from 2025/26 it's likely to be negative.

So they want to screw middle classes to force them back to private schools.

Proverbial 6500 extra teachers - any signs anywhere??

There is not a single policy at present aimed at actual improvement of state education, none, zilch, nothing.

All they do is trying to redistribute to make everything equally bad so at the end of their term God forbid someone can blame them that middle classes/higher earners do better than benefits claimants.

Labour's demise will be much faster and more dramatic than Tory, they won't last more than this terms but the issue is that Reform don't even need to move a finger, KS and RR do everything to bring Nige to power. Urgh

Have you checked out Angela Rayners housing policy

The complete opposite of listening. More dictatorship

All I know it's not working. Read somewhere there's less housing being built now than during COVID. Building companies are used to making huge profits when demand outweights supply and they will not start building more because it would mean prices will go down.

They are already voting with their feet, haven't you heard?

Tens of thousands of high earners, perhaps hundreds of thousands have already left.

I agree. It’s probably dawned on them that those switching from private schools are now taking up places at the better state schools and are now thinking of ways to address that. It was always going to happen. Those parents who were previously in the private sector were never going to settle for the worst state schools. This is a problem at year 7 especially. The Labour Party only have themselves to blame.

So they want to screw middle classes to force them back to private schools.

Many families simply don’t have the money for private education any more, because of the hike in fees this year caused by VAT and other taxes. They can’t afford the fees even if they wanted to.

Proverbial 6500 extra teachers - any signs anywhere??

Of course there isn’t. Not only have they revised the teacher recruitment target down, they’ve cut funding to many areas of education (STEM, music, Latin, languages etc), as well as announcing unfunded pay rises which has effectively cut schools’ budgets. In any case, Labour have now said that the money raised from VAT (not that there’ll be any) is going towards building affordable housing.

The thing is, so a poor child is admitted to a better secondary. They do well, go to university, become, say, a chartered accountant. They have a family, move to a good area, then BOOM ! No, you middle-class twerp - think again! No nearest school for you. Improving your lot is a bad thing .

That’s not what Angelas modus operandi is all about tbh

( As an aside - Agree developers like to make money but then don't all businesses and councils have to acknowledge a % profit when determining a planning application )

The point however is her dictatorship approach to Governing this area

This is exactly right.

I hope they are lurking !

If they really cared about closing the gap between the poor and the well off they’d scrap the 2 child UC limit , invest heavily in improving ALL schools and scrap VAT on private school fees

Yes of course that's what a solicitor would do. In the real world it might level the playing field a bit and all schools will improve.

Whilst my kids have left school now this is exactly what my background is.

My parents were a site labourer and cleaner. As we went to church i got into the best school in the area which was a religious one. I went to Uni got a professional qualification and married a graduate. Our kids subsequently benefited
Now their kids will feel the effects of us and them striving for more

Or you get a struggling family with no spare cash, no car , time poor as well as cash poor, desperate for a place at the local primary which means they can drop their dc off on their way to work but no they get allocated a school the other side of town and have to leave super early and get 2 buses.

I am so glad I went to the schools closest to me, which were under 15 minutes walk away. Having all children in an area attend the same school is so much better for the environment, for traffic congestion, for arranging school buses as needed, for parents without cars or without time, for social cohesion ... "Choice" is not in fact the highest good an education system should be aiming for.

That said there are definitely benefits to not segregating schools by class, and the "attack on the middle classes" narrative on here is largely insane. I would worry a bit about pupils from certain backgrounds pulling down educational or behavioural standards. But I'm not sure there's a big effect of that when they're only there in relatively small numbers, whereas there is also the counter effect that being around lots of kids from families who take education and behaviour seriously can potentially really help those whose families don't.

Let’s repeat that again in case Labour missed it the first time

The irony with the VAT on fees is that it’s the poorer families who’ve been hit hardest. The wealthiest families have either pre-paid and avoided VAT, or aren’t affected by a 20% hike. The middle families who’ve been scrimping and saving are now struggling to afford it and are increasingly having to switch to state. The poorer families (often 20% or so of a school are on some kind of means tested bursary) now can’t access the schools at all, because schools are increasingly withdrawing bursary provision or diverting it to existing students who are now struggling.

Her qualifications are not enough for me to take her approach to almost anything seriously. Actually I would be interested in more modern houses being built in our area, but there's not a single spare space left I'm afraid.

From the article in the OP - which is from The Telegraph about the Tories’ interpretation of the changes, by the way. Lots of coulds and ifs.

The Government has not yet brought in guidance to explain how it would be implemented, but the Conservatives said it could herald “class discrimination” in school admissions.

It could mean pupils priced out of their places at independent schools would be further punished for their perceived privilege: being placed at the bottom of waiting lists for school places

Of course private is now more elite. Now they’re going for the mc who use good state. They’ll keep going until it’s all the same low level.

I don’t think anyone cares if their children are with other wealthy children. They want their children to go to school with children who value education. On average children miss out on 3 years of schooling because of disruptive behaviour. The only way parents can get their children into schools with a higher number of motivated children is to try to get into schools where parents have done their research and care enough to use their ‘sharp elbows’. I don’t think parents should be sneered at for wanting the best education for their children but I guess many on the left wouldn’t agree.

I am on the fence on this one - I think it may depend what part of the country you live in. I believe school catchment areas should be wide enough to promote diversity, particularly in large cities like London. When catchments are too small, they can feel insular and limit children’s exposure to different perspectives and backgrounds. Education isn’t just about academics, t’s also about learning from people with varied life experiences.

In my own case, I would have hated to attend the nearest school, even though it was only a short walk away. Commuting by train and bus gave me the chance to meet people from different parts of the city, which broadened my outlook and enriched my school experience.

The school I hope my children will attend draws students from across London and selects based on merit, creating a dynamic mix of cultures and ideas. I believe more schools could benefit from widening their catchment areas to attract a broader pool of talent. Doing so would not only improve diversity, but also raise the overall quality of education. I am probably biased as the top performing London school have big catchment areas.

What makes me kind of believe in it

1. Such policy has already been implemented by Labour and not far from London.
2. It will not cost them extra money and they might think it will be popular with their base.
3. One just not randomly makes up things like this.

One might misinterpret it if one is a Tory speaking to the Telegraph. Especially if one missed (or ignored) that the guidance for implementation has not yet been published.

I agree
It does sound like a very Starmer/ Labour type policy