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

Bringing back Grammar schools would fix the problem.

Stopping mixed ability teaching would help enormously too.

Labour won’t do that though. They hate grammar schools as much as private schools.

Not according to many mumsnet posters who think they are terrible.

Some kids are really bright, can pass the 11+ and keep up at grammar school, some kids can’t, that’s just the reality of life. There will always be people who are better at something than you.

But they insist it writes kids off at 11. Or that the 11+ is for those children whose parents can afford tutoring. I mean; you do need to be taught HOW to do the 11+. You can put the brightest kid in front of a non verbal reasoning paper and they would struggle if they had never seen one before.

It doesn’t have to cost. There are YouTube videos, you can print free practice papers, the schools usually have practice material on their own websites. If you engage with your child’s school and ask for help, there is usually an engaged teacher or two who wants to help them.

11+ relies on parents being engaged with it. Kids don’t sign themselves up for it.

Schools also offset against VAT on expenditure, including any capital projects over the last five years. Plus you have not accounted for the additional cost of educating those who have moved into the state sector.

plus over 31,000 children are placed in private school by their EHCP and their fees, including VAT are paid by local councils.

I talk about grammar schools as someone who went to one, and shouldn’t have. I couldn’t keep up, I wasn’t clever enough.

I was borderline on the 11+ as I am spectacularly shit at maths. Always have been. I suspect I did well on the English and verbal reasoning and that how I scraped a boarder line mark.

But my mum was dying of cancer. Everyone said it was to do with stress - it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t, I just wasn’t clever enough, I knew, even at that age I would struggle. And struggle I did. I was soon written off at the grammar, and left school as soon as I could at 16. My peers did amazing and have gone on to be successful. Me, not so much. I would have done far, far better at one of the comps where I wouldn’t have been bullied by other kids and staff for not being good enough and ist left behind when I couldn’t keep up (it was the early 90s, I would hope things would be different now).

I still think grammars are great for kids who can do it - my two eldest went to grammars, my 11 year old is just about to start, my 5 year old will do the 11+ when the time comes IF she’s as academic as her siblings. Only time will tell that, she’s only just about to go into year 1.

I certainly won’t be crying about unfairness and being written off if she’s not, she will go to a normal secondary and good luck to all those who can get in and keep up at a grammar.

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.

In Scotland children all go to their local catchment school. You can request another school but will only be offered a space if there are any after all catchment children are accounted for (plus sometimes places may be reserved for those moving into catchment).

10% I believe. Plus of course they own the buildings and grounds.

That % may vary of course. Depending on the faith and level of control they have on admission criteria.

Reminds me of a policeman I worked with. He had a police house on a grotty estate. Eventually they saved a deposit and moved to a new house in a lovely area. He said his big regret was the school for his son. In the rough area he was one of the good/smart kids from a supportive family and doing well. Changed to the great school in lovely area and was just one of many and did much worse. Seemed odd to me at the time but now I'm older I can look back and understand what he meant.

I know one child in my DDs year at primary, it was well known he had coaching five nights a week in years 4, 5 and six till the exam. He got into the grammar, was bottom at everything and got worse GCSEs than other kids from their year who went to the comp. Poor kid, I can't imagine what it did to his self-confidence.

I think you've probably done well, you're clearly a good supportive mum.

In the early days.
Well back in the 70s. There was a surge in births and not enough school places. Religious schools agreed to allow kids in not of the faith and the Govn agreed to pay them for that
Some schools became comp and mixed sex ( most were single sex) to accommodate the surging need

Whilst people not of the faith were offered places after all those of the faith got first dibs. Quite right imo. Those of the faith were/ are paying towards the school through donations and collections. Money that those of the faith don’t pay.

If. The Government closed all faith schools we’d have a higher educational tax burden. If people of the faith are happy to subsidise schools of their faith That’s their choice and currently their right.

My kids all went to grammar schools with no tutoring and so did I and my siblings. My parents wouldn't have even thought about tutoring

We really need to sort out more state schools for children within this category.

The idea of a “tax Biden” is wonderful.

Your tax goes into a doddery, incoherent, useless, failing system.

Oh no! You’ve edited.

I went back and changed. Funny it assumed I was writing Biden though

🤣🤣 you were too quick. Impressive though

I didn’t have tutoring either. No one I knew did.

But I grew up in an area with lots of grammar schools. The 11+ (it was 12+ then, in that area), was just something you did. We did practice questions in school, we were just taught it all in school anyway. I always assume it would still be the case in grammar school areas? It was with my older two. They did the mock exams at school, in school time, just as I did. Everyone just took it.

I don’t live in a grammar area now. My 11 year old certainly didn’t do anything close to 11+ work at primary school. She was the only one to take it at her school, no one could remember the last time a child from there was put in for it.

She had one group tutoring session a week for 11+ during year to get familiar with the sort of questions that she would be facing and so she could do a mock exam. She really enjoyed the tutoring as that’s the sort of maths she loves doing (If I didn’t know better, I swear she was swapped at birth, I don’t know how I birthed a child who is so good at maths!)

If children in my area wanted to do it, they would need a bit of tutoring just so they would know what to do. Not the schools fault - from year 4, DDs teachers recommend tutoring for her anyway as they couldn’t keep up with what she needed, they were so busy with the poor behaviour of children in class, they were worried dd would drop behind or get bored. A lot of the more academic children in her class had tutoring just so they didn’t miss out. They were basically being used as unpaid, mini TAs for the badly behaved kids at one point and not actually being taught in school. We had to put a stop to that.

How do they determine who qualifies as middle class?

Defining and measuring "socio-economic background" is incredibly challenging. Is it based on income, parents’ occupations, living conditions, or the jobs and education levels of grandparents and even great-grandparents? Would you need to map out your entire family tree to determine who’s the poorest or most middle class, complete with proper documentation? It might demand a whole new bureaucracy to handle—and let’s face it, parents would find ways to game the system. (If there’s a loophole, someone will exploit it before you can say “catchment area.”)

This threatens families who have worked hard and saved to live near a good school. Many people in so-called "middle-class" areas are already struggling to make ends meet, stretching every penny to cover rent or mortgage just to stay within the catchment area. Telling them their child might lose out to someone from further away due to a "socio-economic background" assessment is more likely to breed resentment than fairness.

All these issues could be resolved if everyone opted for homeschooling instead of relying on politicians from either side, who don't prioritize the best interests of any group. However, politicians might respond by imposing extra taxes on homeschooling parents.

Specialist schools paid by LAs are exempt.

What are you trying to say? that there's no money?

This is children who haven’t got a place at a defined specialist only school. This is kids given places at private schools that can accommodate them. Not private specialist schools.

Specialist schools are not exempt. Where did you get that idea from?

Well I took the 11 plus 60 years ago a d can't remember if we did anything special to prepare for it. Obviously we did English and maths. My kids schools didn't do any preparation no practice papers or anything. Not an area with lots of grammars, 3 in the LA area.

We love in a grammar area and I can confirm there is absolutely no prep for the 11+ done at our kids school. In fact the class are way behind where they should be in the curriculum as we have so many kids struggling with SEN and no support so the teachers are just firefighting. We asked about 11+ at the last parent teacher meeting. Nobody had any idea about it.
We've done our own research directly with the grammar schools and have bought books to practice at home. Honestly though I don't think I want them going to a grammar. I think I'd rather they were in the local comp (ideally in the top set so they manage to cover everything they should do) because I want them to be able to walk and have local friends. I genuinely think that is more important. The behaviour is pretty good in our local school.

It’s interesting that things have changed (but of course, you are probably in a different area to where I was as well!)

My older children’s school was admittedly a sort of feeder for one of the grammars, even though that doesn’t exist I know, but it was a state school that was on the same grounds, same faith as the grammar. You basically sent your kids there in the hope they would get in to that particular school, so the school helped facilitate that.

It’s so odd if you are in a grammar area that the schools aren’t pushing it. I’m going back to 1992 when I talk about myself, but it was just the done thing, we all took the 12+, there were 6 grammars all in a smallish area.