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

The Equality Act 2010 clarified what socio-economic inclusion could mean for schools admissions. And yet you weirdly deleted it from your post when copying and pasting that bit of the article. Why did you do that?

I think a better way to do this would be to give all children a voucher, and allow any state school to take whichever children they want.

Then give children on FSM a voucher worth 50% more to make them more attractive.

When appealing school placements, the assumption is all schools are equal unless one offers some specific advantage.

Explanatory notes to acts and bills aren’t law and they don’t circumscribe the effect of legal provisions.

I can’t see any comment from Labour that says, for example, “in no circumstances will there will be change to present admissions policies based on school catchment” or “we will legislate separately to prevent LAs from changing centrally-directed catchment admission policy”.

You are welcome to post the entire article here (I didn’t, because the post would be too long). In any case, examples given in 2010 were merely that; examples. They weren’t a definitive list of what it could mean. I’m not sure why you are so keen to refute this speculation when our government, ie the ones making the decisions, haven’t denied it.

Exactly this.

How do these deprived children from miles away get to school under these plans?

They’re not. Even now private school pupils are disproportionately admitted to Oxbridge according to today’s Times. Unfortunately I can’t link but someone might have a share token.

Oxbridge busts the middle-class myth that private pupils lose out.

Who is ready to send their dc to bad schools to improve them?

A few takers on this thread maybe but mostly people don’t want to use their dc that way.

It would be based on access to education for all socioeconomic groups. This would be done by the school in admissions.

I'm pretty sure I know why you deleted bits of the article from your copy and pastes and it wasn't for reasons of length.

Don’t deny it @noblegiraffe @blossom This is actually happening. As of September next year. So no. No it’s not speculation it’s happening in this Labour run / Green supported (I think even Brighton ditched the actual Green Party being in power, for being useless) area. The question is, where next?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jobs/schools-universities/radical-labour-council-class-warfare-south-coast

For access

https://archive.md/ngpbK

You can't link but have you read it? or just saw the title?

"State school pupils who apply to Oxford University are less likely to be offered a place than their private school peers, according to the university’s own figures.

A fifth of state-educated pupils (19%) who applied to Britain’s oldest university secured a place for 2024-25, compared with a quarter (24%) from private schools."

So it's not Oxbridge but Oxford only, and not disproportionately admitted but have a marginally higher success rate.

Equivalent success rates for Cambridge is 25% of success rate for both state and private.

But before jumping to any conclusion you need to analyse the pool - if they reach wider then certainly there will be some lower calibre state students applying.

Given that state grammars (only 5% of all kids are there) and indys (about 19% of kids in sixth form) have by far the best A-level results I'm struggling to see an issue here. These two types of school have at least one-two grades higher A-level averages than the rest of cohort, of course they should have a higher success rate than state average success rate. If anything, it does show that Cambridge discriminate against private pupils.

I know it would be. Whether MC parents want that for their dc is another thing.

Question for you: if priority for free school meals was allowable under the Tories (this article about Brighton is from 2023 https://schoolsweek.co.uk/brighton-hopes-admissions-change-will-lessen-inequality/ ) why would Labour need to amend the Equality Act to make it happen?

Or is the Equality Act consultation merely what the Tories have used to try to whip up fear about this?

I posted the parts relevant to the topic of the thread; how the admissions criteria could change. The fact remains that the government haven’t denied this, but instead have merely emphasised that they are committed to breaking down “barriers to opportunity” and are consulting at how the inclusion of socioeconomic background in the Equalities Act could help with this.

No you didn't. You cut relevant bits out and cut other bits off mid-sentence!

Have widen access criteria completely passed you by? Students getting lower offers if they live in deprived postcodes? Edinburgh a couple of years back only giving offers for nine courses to Scottish students which net specific criteria including lowest decile of deprivation?

Why have the government said that they are consulting on the socio economic duty in the Equalities Act, as a way of “providing a good school place for every child, regardless of their background.”

What are they trying to change which isn’t currently possible?

Kid should go to the school nearest to their home ( unless they have a special need in which case it should be the one that can meet their need) . End of.

@noblegiraffe I provided evidence that a labour council is doing exactly what the telegraph has referred to. You and other labour faithfuls denied that Labour were doing that. In the face of evidence to discredit your assertions, it’s wise to accept it, rather than dig deeper.

I’m not a Labour supporter. I do tend to read links though, which is inconvenient for those who like to misrepresent things.

It's not 25% overall success rate at Cambridge. It's more like 18%. And the odds are slightly better for state schools. However, the headline stats are actually meaningless, because when you look below the surface, you see the stats are highly skewed by the offers to those from certain high-performing grammars; academies like Brampton Manor, or high-performing sixth-forms like Hills Rd in Cambridge where the children of Cambridge academics can be found.

.. nothing misrepresented in any information I’ve provided.