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

Sounds like social engineering

That’s simply not true, two thirds of parents at our school paid fees in advance, meaning the richest school parents won’t pay vat for 3 years. Does that sound even vaguely fair to you? Kier Starmer said he would use forestalling laws to ensure these parents still paid the vat, to date this hasn’t happened. Unless you are aware of any update?

I am not sure what is it?
so the criteria of “living close would be removed” and instead there will be a “financial situation” to look at?

I mean…in essence, school that don’t have any need to assess for entry should be open to all children…
I am doubting it will change the scenery that much?

Instead of changing admissions policies they should be focusing on improving/overhauling our outdated education system. All children should be able to go to a good school with qualified teachers. Instead we have a recruitment and retention crisis and lots of our children will be in classrooms with poor quality teachers or completely unqualified staff come September. That’s a bigger issue than admissions but let’s tick a little
box for equality and pretend we are doing something instead!

I had a council assisted place to an independent school in the 70s. My mum had to buy my uniform at huge cost - and a lacrosse stick! - but the transport fees were paid for.

My family were extremely poor - and we were technically homeless for 2 years, when I started commuting to my posh school, far away. I don't know whether we would have had the equivalent of free school meals though, because my dad was in work, albeit not well paid. Also, my mum started finding herself work in this period, to try and sort out our housing situation, so had we been claiming any benefits to which we might previously have been entitled, it may well be that we would have then lost entitlement.

My parents had a particularly wide choice of schools, because the 11+ still existed, and I scored top of some region (this was only vaguely recalled by my mum decades later). They did not make full use of this offer, as they were determined that I had to go to a Catholic school, which effectively meant beng taught by nuns [help].

Though I hated the convents at the time, I did get a pretty good education overall.

The 11+ seems to be looked down upon now, but the principle of identifying clever kids from poor backgrounds and helping them achieve their potential - that seems like a good idea to me, especially as it changed my life, really.(and yes, there is a whole conversation about how that can best be done and there are many people who think it can't be done very effectively )

You must be in some ultra rich area. That's not the case for most schools.

Again, even reduced amount, we're still talking about over a billion - where is this money? what exactly is being done to improve, you know, to add something, to education?

I also think that our political system mitigates against investment in education. We elect politicians for terms of 5 years. So they are looking for strategies where they can show a positive result in that time frame, for which they can take the credit.

Investing in education would take 20 or 30 years or more before a positive change is seen - multiple election cycles. And it is a very expensive intervention to do really well.

So cosmetic changes appeal, that don't require a big injection of cash, and are designed to appeal to target groups of voters, at the expense of people who might be less likely to vote for your party.

It is a great shame, because education is such a potent force for change for the better.

Although, you could argue that some politicians would find it to their advantage if the electorate were not very well educated.

I wish, we live in an affordable part of zone 4 London, the schools fees are relatively modest (in the grand scheme of fees) and yet the roll has fallen considerably, many have exited due to the additional costs. I suspect this policy will run at cost to the state once EHCP vat, exits to the state etc. and those who won’t pay vat for 3 years are considered. I’d also be keen to know the amount it’s raised vs. cost the state and also the number of teachers recruited? Since these were key to the flagship policy.

You have absolutely nailed it there.

I simply think all schools should be of an equally high standard, but they’re not. Government using equality policies as a fig-leaf for many schools being rubbish environments for kids - eg the secondary in Adolescence - although many are good. This policy wouldn’t cure that.

Same. My dad and both my brother and I went to grammar schools. Tutoring wasn’t even a thing in those days. Ironically a girl in my class whose parents were both teachers failed her 11+.

Urgh. Keir Starmer wrecking things again because of the giant chip on his shoulder. He is screwing people who contribute and indulging those who play the system (super rich and benefit scroungers)
I can’t wait till he is gone

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

I and both my siblings went to our local grammar. My primary school practised the Kent tests a bit ahead of the 11+, that was the extent of the tuition we got. They didn't make a big thing of it, it was just something we did.

Arguably, if kids need extensive tutoring to pass the 11+, they are not actually grammar school material.

In my friendship group at the grammar school, there was one girl who lived on the council estate, some who lived in rented houses, some whose families were owner occupiers. One of the dads worked at the docks, two were police officers, one was starting his own business. Not sure I ever knew what any of the others did.

Another Labour class war - they need to be more concerned about how they are going to pay to educate all the children that have been displaced from private education. I’m so bored of paying the amount of tax that I do and then they take my money and treat me like I’m in the wrong for earning money - it’s like I should apologise for my existence. I’m also an employer with 30 staff who can’t afford to recruit anyone else because they’ve fucked me with the employers NI rise - this government are going to put us in to an employment recession so school places will be the least of their worries. The amount of NI I am now paying (per annum) is at least 1.5 more people I can’t give a job to and I’m not getting any more for my money than I was prior to April. If they carrying on fucking over all the business owners they will run out of other people’s money.

If this is a real policy then it makes zero sense. Labour should focus on tackling the problems in poor performing schools before just moving children around.
I feel that there are other measures that should be dealt with first. e.g updating the curriculum, sort out SEN resourcing and fix the issue with lack of discipline.

There are a group of people who do not want help, it requires too much effort to change. Aspirational parents (rich or poor) will try to find a way, that is why you can have outstanding schools in deprived areas e.g. Tower Hamlets

Also using the measure of FSM is likely to miss a large group of working people who do not qualify for FSM but are just about managing. Why should they miss out?

Thirdly, how are they planning to fund the additional transport costs for bussing children around. Not all regions are funded like London.

Social engineering at it's worse. I really, really, hope they do not implement this.

There’s a group of people in society they’re trying to reach that just can’t and won’t help themselves. Doesn’t matter how much money you shovel in their direction, it makes no difference. Neither the parents nor the children take education seriously and it’s a waste of everyone’s time and resources trying to drag them up to standard, it’ll never happen.

Yes, but for some reason, people won’t see that.

The people I live around aren’t unhappy with their lives. When I first moved here, one of the mums in dds class couldn’t wait to show me a clip of when she was on Jeremy Kyle.

There is such a misconception that people are miserable and they want to “better themselves”.

When I first moved to where I am now, I had always lived in a middle class bubble. I used to snobbish wonder why they wouldn’t accept help. Now I look around, and they all seem happier with their lives than I am with mine, I think I’m the mug to be honest.

Going back years. Do local authorities still give free bus passes to children age 11 and over who have to travel more 3 miles to get to Secondary school?

If so travel problem and cost solved.

IMHO, schools in wealthier neighbourhoods are good because parents actually do some decent parenting (teaching good manners, accountability and expectation setting), children are fed nutritious meals at home and the parents are heavily invested in academic outcomes of their children (pushing to achieve, private tutoring etc). This is what makes those schools good, not just being in some neighbourhood.

Just to say re my first post. That to be given a free travel pass applied to all children at all schools in the local authority area. Irrespective of the financial situation of parents.

As long as the journey was over 3.miles as the crow flies.

Well, you’d better all hope I’m never in charge! I would abolish faith schools, then introduce fair banding, school admission by ballot and means tested free transport for everyone of school age.

You are assuming there are busses to catch - that go in roughly the right direction.
A bus pass is no use if there are no busses!

What a mess. Good luck getting students through traffic here, the chugging fumes and no local schools.

It’s only an mn post so no hoping necessary.

The parents round here all drive their little darlings to school anyway.

You couldn't do this where i live. The village is quite affluent and the one primary school has basically just enough places for the kids who live there.

If you gave some of the places to poorer children from the nearby towns, the local council would then by law be required to provide transport as village children would be given places at schools 3 miles + away. It would cost a massive amount.