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

Well fair enough. I think it's nuts personally. Even from just a congestion point of view. Id want my kids to be able to walk to school if there was one nearby. It's crazy to think that wouldn't be the case for loads of kids.

It will reduce the cost of housing too making housing more affordable.

Most importantly it gives children from a lower socio economic background the opportunity to be educated with people from different backgrounds.

It has huge long term benefits for those children.

If the schools in poor areas are poor then they should be improved. But it isn’t the schools themselves is it? It is the children in them. So in other words, Labour want to use middle class children to make schools in poor areas look good.

Approx 20% of the kids from my children's primary school walked to school
The rest took a bus or were driven.

Its normal in many areas to commute to schools.

Its easier again in secondary, as the children can travel independently.

'The children in them'.

The children who can't afford to live in the catchment with the better schools are 'the children in them'.

The issue is there are too many from the same impoverished area.

Its the same as living in ghettos really. Spread people out into the wider community and it will dilute many of the issues.

Its a great idea to give kids from these areas different and better opportunities.

If the schools are bad then Labour should improve them.

I don’t think we should put it on six year olds to improve the education of other children.

I don’t think we should put it on six year olds to improve the education of other children

What about every child being equal?

But that's not what this policy ia doing is it? It's placing higher priority on some kids over others. We have a school about 10 mins walk from here. It's rated "good". I want my kids to go there because then they can walk and our lives will be better. There is an "outstanding" school about 40 minutes walk or 2 buses away that I wouldn't include on my list because it would be a PITA for travel. There are also a bunch of other "good" schools in the borough but I want the walkable one. If be bloody fuming if they had to travel miles for another kid to get their space (and also have to travel miles!)

Wonderwendy

Ah right As long as. your kids aren’t affected.

I despair.

Of course the most vulnerable in our society should be prioritised.

It doesn't change the fact that what I said is true.

I'd like to tell you that I'm not one of the countless state school parents who celebrated the financial blow that private school parents, struggling to pay school fees, have received. I homeschool my kids, which means I cover the cost of their education, and sometimes I wonder if one day the government might target homeschooling parents for additional taxes.

I’m strongly against VAT on school fees. If the goal is to raise revenue for public funds, Labour should have extended VAT to other semi-private educational activities like universities and so on—not just private school fees.

Well I'm lucky enough to live on a borough where most of the schools are pretty good. So I'm not too bothered from a quality perspective. I do think kids should go to a school near their home. Then they have local mates and can walk. We have an obesity crisis and polluted air.
But apart from that the focus should be on improving the poor schools. Not just shoving the MC kids into them.

It isn’t about ‘shoving’ MC kids into schools. It’s about putting disadvantaged kids into schools where they will benefit from being in a different environment with peers with different priorities.

It will help towards equalising those young people. For those in disadvantaged areas start out behind others from the get go . It is never a good idea to house or educate all poor people together.

Saying to improve all schools is idealistic at best. It’s as much if not more about mindsets and expectations as facilities.

Mmmm - shouldn’t we just make all schools good then it doesn’t matter where people live they can get a good education at the school they can walk to?

at some point those who want a more exclusive education for their children will form a more cost effective selective school than some of the very pricey london preps.
people rightly or wrongly associate children from an impoverished background as being disruptive and not the kind of friend that many want their children to chum with (play dates, sleep overs etc.). peers have the most influence on teens and very few want disruptive peers or those who display antisocial behavior for their pre-teen or teen.
it will take a couple decades at the very least for the uk to build up one state school sector that everyone wants to be part of and wants to join in on.
imho the state really needs to sort out adequate provision for children with profound send (more specialist schools and a variety of specialist schools which are available everywhere to all sen children).
after a model for those children with profound needs (which may include some overnights respite options) then work on the next group of children with complex needs which might be more flexible time tabling, then comes the group who need hands on educational options etc.

i don't think it's rocket science if the public wanted change they could make it happen.

Lots of ordinary state schools aren't catchment based as the priority anyway, ours aren't.

I think it's a great idea tbh.

But if the school I a really popular they'd presumably have
Looked after children
Siblings (maybe?)
FSM
And it fills up like that. How would that encourage mixing anyway? Surely you'd just get MORE disadvantaged kids stuck together? How wide would the area be they take from?
I'm in London and in my borough we don't have catchments. They just have the usual priority list then distance to the school. You can also apply to a different borough and the same criteria stands.
So they could absolutely fill up with only looked after kids and FSM. Potentially across most of the borough I'm in even if it means kids from other boroughs (some neighbouring boroughs have much rougher schools) then where would the kids from round here be sent? To schools in one of the home counties? I just can't imagine how it could work in practice.

So what's the admission criteria at yours then?

Continuity of education through the pyramid over catchment. So if you go to one first school you then get priority at the middle school and high school.

It seems to work well. The schools are outstanding but undersubscribed at first so everyone usually gets their choice and then relaxes knowing it's sorted for the later schools.

This is already happening at some schools voluntarily and is just one among other catchment criteria. It doesn’t take precedence over sibling places. It only ringfences a few spots for children from poorer families. It makes a lot of sense in areas where catchments are very small, which can be the case in cities. The children who get these spots will also be the next closest to the schools and so may well also be able to walk there or do a short trip by public transport. Maybe this idea doesn’t work as well rurally and possibly it also works better for secondary, but for urban areas where people are renting or buying near certain schools, it allows a handful of children who are less privileged access to an affluent, successful school.

While children from homes where things are more stable with more resources available are likely to do well in a decent but less well-performing school, for these children it could make a huge difference to be able to go to a high-achieving school. Lots of these children have experienced adversity and their outcomes could be massively improved in an environment where they have more chance of thriving.

Meanwhile many children on FSMs are full of potential and would actually be a boon to the school and their classmates. To be in a more diverse environment and not in a bubble is to everyone’s benefit.

Because this theory works so well in other areas of society right 😬 that's why large council estates are no longer built and instead social housing is mixed into new estates in smaller numbers. Because it "dilutes" the issues. Except it doesn't. I lived on a mixed private and social housing estate. It was always very evident which houses and streets where private. I lived in the social housing btw.

I am someone who's experienced social mobility because of work and becoming finally independent (was NMW for a long time whilst I upskilled), not my peers at school. Because the privalidged kids don't hang out with others that aren't like them anyway. Their parents rarely encourage it and there IS a hierarchy at school. Just plonking kids from disadvantaged background into schools to "level up" is at best naive and patronising. Because it's a much deeper social change that is needed.

As a "poor kid", I got into the "best" school in our town. It's made not a blind difference except for being more othered than I would have been in my catchment school. I was clearly still one of the "poor kids" and there were plenty of us. We just weren't accepted or included by the children from "better" backgrounds. Not wonderful for self esteem. This eased at later secondary years and college, but even within large friendship groups, there were sub groups of those that lived on the right street with 2 married parents who went abroad regularly. Difference always shows up and people are always looking for ways to feel superior. Anyone that's grown up in a medium to large area knows the best streets/areas and how tightly children from those areas socialise.

The answer is to deal with disruption in schools better and to better support those who struggle by funding education better.

I'd be surprised if anyone who works in a school feels this would work. Surely they see day in day out that despite their best efforts to help a lot of children with lots of issues, their impact is limited when you're going home to a sub optimal environment.

I guarantee if you've got horrible parents like mine, it really doesn't matter that much where you go to school. Your problems and disadvantages in life start at a much lower level than where you go to school.

I think we should be encouraging kids to walk to school where possible, so it should be those living closest.

I live somewhere where the school is terrible and the house prices are low so I'm wondering if this may be better for us.

I haven't read the proposal. If this is what is planned I agree with it. My ds actually go to faith grammar in a posh area and the school has children come from all over by merit as we have all faiths as well. It's actually lovely to see boys travel ages for better facilities and opportunities. I feel bad for their long journey but glad they get to go to a much better school.

It just doesn’t matter what’s established fact or otherwise about this subject.

The left-wing middle class would tell Starmer to fuck off if the idea was even whispered at Labour Party Conference. It’s a dud: the whole point of comprehensive schools for the leftist middle class is that they can use their money to get their children into a good school by buying in an expensive catchment, while boasting about their abhorrence of fee paying schools.

There is no way the middle class left will ever accept this. Their principles go out the window when their children’s chances of advantage in education are threatened. And Starmer is not going to upset these people. Largely because he’s one of them.

Agree. You can’t fix shitty parenting and fucked up families - which are why so many children don’t do well at school- by bussing kids all over the shop.

Schools are not the social care provider of last resort. There are loads of opportunities for families in this country. If people don’t want to avail themselves of them, then there’s only so much the Government can do, and accepting those limitations and expecting people to take responsibility for their child’s outcomes is not abandoning children!