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

Your replies still seem to be ignoring the fact that the government haven’t denied the suggestions in the article. Why haven’t they denied it if it’s not a possibility they are exploring? They were given the opportunity to deny it and haven’t. They reiterated that they were committed to breaking down barriers to opportunities, and are looking at amending the Equalities Act to include a socio economic duty in order that every child has access to a “good” school place. They are looking at amending the Act rather than trying to improve the poor schools. What are they trying to achieve by amending the Act?

I can't edit anymore but look at this
A level and other 16 to 18 results, Academic year 2023/24 - Explore education statistics - GOV.UK

APS (average point score) per A level entry all private schools - 45.61
APS per A level entry all private schools - 38.28

Unless application success rate for private school students is 18% higher than state (that's the difference in APS), then it shows a clear discrimination of private ones.

I’ve read the full article. Nothing in that article suggests that the speculation isn’t a real possibility.

‘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.’

ha ha, quite.

With parents in a rush to get their child to school then get to work, and many schools not allowing children to walk to/from school alone, of course there is traffic chaos.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14367247/amp/Brighton-council-Labour-secondary-school-plan-class.html

If it was permissible in Brighton under the Tories, why would they need to amend the act in order to do this? Why isn't it already widespread policy in Labour councils if that's what they're desperate to do? They were apparently perfectly able to already.

Don't you want every child to have access to a good school place by the way?

Don't you want every child to have access to a good school place by the way?

Yes, which is why I think that efforts should be made to improve the poor schools, rather than just shifting children around. Education should not be a postcode lottery. The fact that some areas have academically selective schools whereas some don’t, for example, is ridiculous. A state funded system should provide the same opportunities for all children. At the moment it doesn’t.

Do you think that Labour don't want to improve poor schools and instead want to shift children around? On what basis?

Yes I know that. It doesn't make it right.

Because the Act would mandate councils to pursue equality of access for the disadvantaged over geography, not merely allow it. That’s if you believe the Tories’ speculation. And I’ve said I think that speculation is quite a reach, for lots of reasons.

But it wouldn’t be out of character for this government to arrange the law to put pressure on councils to alter their admissions policy. The Act would give them cover.

As for access to good schools, of course, everyone wants that. But, one, that’s not what would happen. The best way to improve a bad school is to introduce strong discipline. That’s not popular among a certain sort of parents (many of whom seem to be on MN). And, two, schools will never be uniform and parents - not least ‘progressive’ ones - want the best they can get for their child. If you stop the geographical test you stop the system being gamed by the middle class. And they’d never stand for that.

But it wouldn’t be out of character for this government to arrange the law to put pressure on councils to alter their admissions policy. The Act would give them cover.

How has it worked in Wales?

Sorry, I don’t follow.

The Equality Act has included the socio-economic clause in Wales since 2021. And Scotland since 2018. And various English councils have voluntarily adopted it. You should be able to tell which councils they are because of the change in their school admissions criteria?

I haven’t seen anything from this government that’s going to improve the poorer performing schools. They’ve cut funding for STEM, Latin, music, foreign language, computing etc initiatives. They’ve awarded unfunded pay rises which means that school budgets are even more stretched. I’m not convinced that a “free” breakfast muffin is going to improve standards in schools. They’ve cut teacher recruitment targets. The promised investment from any money raised from VAT on school fees has now been allocated to building affordable housing. The VAT policy has shifted pupils from the private into the state sector.

.

Re-posted with the quoted comment…

Thank you. I wasn’t aware of that. It’s a very good point. It confirms that the speculation is likely over-blown.

Even so, it is odd that education should be given as an example by the government of what might (supposedly) be improved by LAs under the provision, even if it’s limited to publicising admission criteria - which seems pretty pointless to me: I don’t believe any parents accidentally send their child to a worse school when there’s a better one available.

I also wonder whether the middle class school gaming effect is at all prevalent in Wales or Scotland or those parts of England where the provision’s been adopted.

On the basis repeatedly mentioned above - please show me at least one policy aimed at improving education? where are the money collected from two terms of VAT on private schools? where are new 6500 teachers? where is new SEN investment?

A single action to improve what's there, not shifting children around?

They will most certainly narrow the gap by bringing successful schools in middle class areas down. What else?

I might be wrong, but IIRC Wales has the lowest attainment rates?

They don’t have any money to improve things. Wonder if anyone knows how many of the promised school teachers have been recruited, also what they have raised from private school vat, suspect it will have been a fools errand - designed to anger people rather than raise enough for state schools to improve.

also what they have raised from private school vat,

Ok, assuming 580k students in PS in 2024/25, average 18k pa. Two terms at 20% - is this £1.3bn? Don't think too many parents escaped given such short notice. The situation will certainly change in Sep, but this money have been collected already.

Where's new investment in education??? Free toast for everyone?

The VAT raised this year won’t be close to that. Many parents (especially at the more expensive schools) pre-paid for at least the 24/25 academic year. Some of the most expensive schools had to close their schemes because they couldn’t cope with the demand. This is why the VAT was always a stupid idea; it didn’t affect the wealthiest families. They have enough money to be able to avoid it. It’s the middle and lower income families who have been hardest hit.

Labour hopes if enough middle class children are thrown into failing schools, they will eventually turn the corner, despite there being no good evidence to support this. In fact, in previous social experiments of this nature, the opposite was true. Middle class kids (often white) were over represented on the schools talented and gifted programmes, whilst socioeconomically poorer children were frequently sidelined. Sad but true. Although a school might get better results, this outcome didn’t actually advantage poorer children. Who often had received less coaching and access to extra curriculars, thus not finding themselves proportionally represented in the top 30%. Try this podcast, it’s fascinating: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html

I’ve just read the article that Andrew19997 linked to. Yep, it sounds a total nightmare - and exactly the sort of thing that Brighton council would do. I’m really glad that friends who live in Brighton have their children already in senior school.

More broadly though, this sort of change needs to be carried forward on public opinion. Brighton is a very Labour city but upsetting the residents is a bad move. Once there is a public perception that Labour are going to bugger up people’s lives, that is hard to shift.

Not many parents prepaid, only some. And yes, some were forced to remove kids. But even if we revise this number 10% down (which is way too generous), it's still £1.17bn of new money.
Can someone please show me where it's gone?