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

It will also cause chaos for working parents. I've chosen to live 5 mins from school because I've got to get to work, i don't have time for a lengthy school run because someone thinks a poorer child from 5 miles away should be shipped over here. I'd have to reduce my hours and pay less tax. Meanwhile how is the other kid meant to get here? Their parents are probably working long hours in low wage jobs and have the same issue.

This is bonkers. If the local school isn't good enough, address that issue. Improve the school.

This would be a good idea where I live. There are two sought after co-ed comprehensives that all pushy parents move into catchment for (1 mile only), during Year 4/5 and that many with kids with SEND, fight to get EHCPs in time, to get priority admissions there, and free transport. Meanwhile, the FSM rate is lower than the wider area and quite significantly so.
I do not think it would be a big deal for the schools to have some additional priority places for FSM, as long as those are kids within 3 miles and the council does not need to fund the transport. It would be the FSM kids from educationally motivated homes that would choose the schools, and so the kids would do well there.
In London, the academies with poorer demographics, but still doing well, those are poorer demographics albeit with motivated parents (often immigrants). That is why the schools do well. A school needs parental support. I doubt they could force anyone to go miles away so giving some children with poorer economic backgrounds a choice, without having to pay up for catchment, would be a good idea. I assume it will just be a few priority places.

I think many responses here are quite selfish. The country is in a mess after the former government and there is very little money. Something needs to be done.

we need to improve social mobility and this does not happen if we let people with money be able to buy their way into catchment areas where they are in a little bubble with each other.

good and outstanding schools should at least have a large quota of children on FSM. That would ensure that those children also have better opportunities as they will be surrounded be high achieving children and benefit from that.

if an inadequate school had more determined parents, that school would improve as well.

I would have children go to their local school, but give schools in deprived areas enough funding to reduce class sizes from 32 to 26 or something if that sort.

It’s the same where I live. Most of the children at the school live in a very small local area but so many drive anyway. The family two door up from me drive to school. It’s a 6 min walk. And no, there aren’t any hidden disabilities, they aren’t rushing to get to work, they are my neighbours, I know them. They are very open that they can’t be arsed to walk with some of the trouble makers (which is true, there are kids swearing and running about the roads, parents shouting and swearing, it’s not some lovely little walk to school).

But the parking around the school is so bad, they have to leave way before we do and sit outside waiting for the gates to open and end up parking almost the same distance on the otherside of the school on really busy days 🤦🏽‍♀️ All that happens is, everyone gets there at 8am and 2pm and just sits in their cars waiting, so even then, spaces are limited.

The issue perhaps here is that an outstanding school is possibly outstanding because parents are majority wealthy (can afford the expensive houses in catchment) and support the school financially - our local infants (the outstanding one) has teslas etc parked outside at pickup …. It always raises loads of money when it has sponsored dances, fetes etc and always affords good school equipment as a result.
I wonder how long outstanding schools will remain outstanding if the intake rules change..

However, legally the Council would have to have the ability to direct all schools (including church schools, academies) and not just LA controlled schools, to offer the same proportion of priority places. Not sure how this would work. Whether it would change yearly or be up to eg 25% of demographic. So 25% FSM places living within 3 miles. They will have to pick a percentage that won’t change the whole nature of the school. Teachers choose to teach in certain schools. If the culture is changed overnight, they leave. That often happens with new head changes too.

My family are academic and I am a foreigner. I look forward to putting my child in a good school with academic kids. If mouthy little Tyler or Chantelle who disrupt the class constantly gets moved to my kids class, I will consider moving my kid to a better school and it will be a loss. Schools only do well with students and parents who do care about education and value it.

Its easy to say its selfish not to like it. But its also a pragmatic view.

If you have several schools in close proximity, a joint catchment area with some random allocation makes sense. So central London or Manchester etc.

It doesn't make sense in areas of poor public transport or where schools themselves are spread out.

More money for Pupil Premium could help a lot. Pay teachers more to work in struggling schools to attract better teachers

Or you’ll just get levelling down and all dc will find disruption and lower goals.

Yeah it’s crazy how many people drive. Our walk to primary was 30 minutes, but we’d past this house that was 5 minutes from school, they’d pull off the drive as we walked by and they’d be pulling back on it as we walked home! It’s ridiculous how lazy some people are!

But as has been pointed out many times, those schools are better due to the people who live in the area. Whats the alternative? Bring all schools down to the same level? Life isn’t fair.

Hardly anyone drives here, we’re in London.

Councils are free to implement parking charges near schools if they want people to walk and not drive? Nice little money spinner?

Its all double yellow lines near our Village Primary. Doesn't stop them.

I do not think it is levelling down with correct management of percentage of SEND and FSM across all schools. It would make things better for all, less teenage crime as well etc. But it would need careful management on a yearly basis potentially. Like I said, the most sought after comprehensives where I live actually have a high proportion of SEND with EHCP already. FSM. EAL and SEND are extra challenges for schools and should be shared out fairly locally to aid teacher recruitment. I am going to assume it is the latter driving this primarily.

“It’s all double yellow lines near our Village Primary. Doesn't stop them.”

A parking warden there every day would stop them. A few £80 fines. It is not being policed, that is your council’s issue.

Parking warden comes out once a term. Solves it for a few days.
But once people can see parking enforcement are out, they magically find somewhere legal to park. So its maybe only one or two getting fined.

And actually I have sympathy as many people don't gave a safe walking route as they officially live within 2 miles but the foot route is several miles due to the railway and airfield.

Even if people drive a short distance doing this means longer journeys and more congestion and fumes

Edited to add: this was meant to be in reply to a post about grammar schools but the quote got detached…

The big change from when I was at school in a grammar school area (1990s) and now is that the schools used to do some preparation for the 11+ (this was Bucks, so was actually a 12+ at the time), so tutoring wasn’t so necessary. They aren’t allowed to now, or at least seem to be strongly discouraged, which leads to inequality in access to support on strategies and to be taught how to answer the (weird but not necessarily that hard) questions. You also sat the test 3 times and the best score was counted - so kids who had a bad day or needed a bit more practice still had a decent chance. That’s where the pointy-elbows comes in now, in my experience - whether you can cause enough fuss to get the school to support your appeal and pull together enough of a well-worded argument. Our grammar gets a lot of students in based on appeals and many of those are from the most affluent families (private prep, etc. and particular primary schools). I don’t know if appeals were still a possibility in the 90s (I imagine extreme cases like parental bereavement, which wouldn’t just affect one of the three tests, might have been able to appeal) but with three chances to do the test you’d have shut out a lot of the ‘he was ill that day/very anxious because it is so high pressure’ arguments.

I am generally in favour of selective education - my father and aunt were from very deprived backgrounds and benefited from the grammar schools of the 60s - and I work in a selective school but there is no doubt that the current system is grossly unfair. We have a set % of places for Pupil Premium with priority admission before anyone else other than Looked After Children roughly in line with local FSM % and with a lower pass mark. We never fill them, and have a very low FSM %. It’s a combination, I suspect, of ‘it’s not for the likes of us’ attitudes + no help allowed from school to prepare and can’t afford tutoring + council won’t pay for transport if you don’t go to your nearest school, even if you’re going to the nearest selective school (a ridiculous policy in a county with a grammar system) and the journey can be long and awkward if relying on public transport.

Yes I agree with this. Mine went to/are at local schools - but I accept that their high school is one of the most sought after in the city (faith). They qualify because of my life long faith. I disagree profoundly with the ‘let’s go to church and volunteer for everything to get the kids into the CofE primary’ approach, but I understand why parents do it. Most parents want what they consider to be the best provision for their DC.

Whatever plan is developed, there will be negative consequences. If measures are put in place to widen access to the perceived best schools there will be traffic/transport challenges. If schools are required to admit only local DC, house prices remain high around the popular schools thus entrenching wealth privilege.

On balance I think I favour primaries admitting local DC only, with additional funding directed to schools in areas of deprivation to provide significant additional staffing. I’ve seen how important this is in a secondary school near me- staff whose responsibility it is to get DC into classes and off the corridors, to staff and support reflection units etc. This school needs more staff than my son’s school - that is quite clear.

Not sure about secondaries - that’s more complex as pupils are old enough to travel independently.

I think it is time to look very carefully at faith schools, to be honest. DS1 went to a faith secondary; DS2 went to faith primary and secondary. DH and I did not go to faith schools, so our family has had a mixed experience. I think they should simply admit the local children, with a parental opt out procedure if parents do not want a particular type of ethos. That would require there to be a few spare places in nearby non faith schools - not sure how that would work.

I do know that growing up in a small town where kids just went to one of three local primaries and then practically everyone went on to the single high school there was none of the stress involved in school applications in a large city with grammar schools, faith schools - varying widely in perceived quality as there are so many of them here (Liverpool) - and non- faith schools, comprehensives and academies.

I do find the assumption that providing a fairer system for FSM and SEND children would automatically result in a levelling down deeply distasteful.

Blimey. How about “Mouthy little Sophia and James”?

Yeah, that was me that posted and I was in that area too in the early 90s. I don’t remember the 3 test thing, but to be honest, I remember very little! I remember doing quite a few tests in the school hall, I assumed now that they were mocks.

We did have appeals. I shouldn’t have gone to a grammar school at all. I got a borderline mark but got in on appeal as my mum was dying at the time. They said I was under stress, nope! i was shit at maths. But it was her dying wish I went there, as it was a faith school (I actually tried to fail a bit too, as I really didn’t want to go there, I was an atheist even at 12).

A couple of other girls from my year also had the same scores, appealed, but didn’t get in. I was only aware after the fact as the three of us were sent to an empty classroom for a few days, with loads of our school work to tart up, re do and put in folders. It was only later it dawned on me that it was part of some sort of appeal process.

They are rarely called Sophia or James. Not where I live, anyway.

My sister in law has taught early years for many years. She says when you get the class list, you can usually guess from the names which ones will be trouble.