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

I’m glad my kids all went to our local schools with no messing about with transport. Going to a school further away means earlier starts and later finishes. Transport will be a must and that is costly both in monetary and environmental terms.
If all the local kids go to the local school, mums can help one another out if they or their other child/ren are ill. Local education can promote more of a community and helps to foster friendships outside of school hours.

Why mums?
Er no I couldn't because I work full time, I can't "help out" if other children are ill.

Yes, that’s right, it is.

Also, in our area anyway, the LA are trying to encourage ALL parents with children in KS1 who get free school meals universally (in England anyway) to apply for the FSM scheme. dont ask me how it works, I just hear dh venting about what a nightmare it is for him at work.

Thats the area my husband work in for the LA and it’s causing him a logistical and data nightmare with accounting and funding because at the moment, it looks like anyone who does do that is going to be lumped in with those claiming FSM due to claiming certain benefits. I think our area is one of the first to try it.

Also expanding the FSM to all on UC is causing a huge nightmare too, his work all crosses over into special needs/socail care and he said it’s going to create an even bigger mess for LAs than they are in now and the expense of the admin for all this is ridiculous. It all has a knock on effect to other children’s services and LAs just don’t have the data management in place to support it all.

Sounds like it would turn into the whole keyworker child allowed to school plus vulnerable fiasco that was COVID.

I'll be honest, as someone who did that at university myself, I do think it's probably a mc hangup.

It's been interestingto me to watch my daughter who started at university, and while she did ok, it seemed like she was just further stuck in this not-quite-adult no man's land. She dropped out, got a job as a receptionist at a law firm which is a really responsible position, and now seems to be moving very smoothly into being an adult, planning for the future, getting some courses to progress her career, starting a volunteer initiative.

I am now not so sure the university time was even very healthy, and certainly not necessary.

The advance of AI should be prompting more preparation for “hands on” employment-the sort of things BTecs used to help prepare kids for. All the Mumsnet-derided Hair and Beauty, Construction, Horticulture. The things that will still be needed when AI has taken over all the “middle class” jobs!

So if you are a decent earner is it really going to be no State pension, no good school for your children, university’s discriminating against your kids, limited or no NHS access? That is what the Telegraph is portraying? Dooms day full communism for the MC and if you have to pay for it all privately, then you pay double and VAT on top?
And this is to apply to anyone on a wage which wouldn’t even be that big anyway. Just a way of bringing those down to the rest on UC? Whilst the top elite benefit from the tech boom and everyone else is a minion on a low universal wage.

It is unlikely any government could ever do that without closing borders and full state control because literally no skilled person would stay.

@twistyizzy ok, parents. So who is taking your dc to school? Could that person not take another child if their parent or sibling were ill. Would you never ask another parent to help you out if you were too ill to take your dc to school. Maybe your DH/p would do so but that isn’t the case for many..
My point is that if all the children in a locality go to the same school the logistics of the means and act of transporting them to school is simpler. I know of children being driven a few miles to a primary school when there are at least 2 others in walking distance.
Parents might well choose a school nearer to their workplace but that isn’t always in the child’s best interests and could be problematic if the parent changes jobs.

I took my child to breakfast club and picked them up from after school club.
You are living in fantasy land not reality. Saying parents "could/should" is just idealism. Most are too busy holding down jobs. Every child at my DDs primary school year group had both parents working FT in dual households and the single parent working FT in single parent households. No SAHP hanging around with the time to look after other children.

Confused why this would be allowed. Where do they propose to send the in catchment pupils? Our in catchment school offers pupils living less than 1 mile due to the amount of children applying in the area. If the FSM out of catchment area children are offered a place first and have to travel by car or bus then where are the children who live locally meant to go? The nearest (based on this criteria) would most likely be 3 miles away and the in catchment children will also need to travel by multiple buses or car!
the school is over subscribed and will displace at least 50% of the in catchment children.
Like other posters have said, what is the point of working hard (I’m from a low income family, bad school but went to university) to move into an area for schools? I may as well have stayed in a cheaper house and not improved my life and stayed in a low income household so my kids have FSM and go to any school they want. Where’s my aspiration going to come from?

Labour don't want aspiration

I had FSM and received a low Income grant for the university tuition. If they make education accessible for low income families then it’s up to the parents and children. I do believe there should be a mix of FSM but it should be capped within the catchment area, not out of catchment. After several years, when the school has diluted to no longer being good, then i guess all schools will be average and it will all level out. No nice areas, no good schools. Only the elite can afford private schools

There are loads of cheaper private schools across the border in France or even Spain though. So I really don’t think that if this were implemented really badly that many successful people who can’t quite afford private school would stick around. I wouldn’t have.

I know several parents who live abroad have pulled DC out of UK independent schools in favour of international independent schools abroad. Much cheaper fees + no VAT.

The disastermongers continue to over exagerate the problems this policy would cause.
If a secondary school with a PAN intake of 180 has a 1.5km radius "catchment area" currently, then designating 15% of places for Pupil Premium applicants would (if ZERO pupil premium applicants are currently admitted) merely reduce that 1.5km radius to 1.4km. The pupils who in the current structure might have got places and now don't are the ones who live approximately half way between this school and the next one over that is often less than 3km away, and don't have a significantly greater commute. If the school currently has some pupil premium intake but just significantly below average, then the effect is obviously smaller. People who live well within the catchment area boundaries will not be affected.

But screw those who just managed to get into the catchment eh?

I don’t know how we keep swallowing these race to the bottom policies rather than…actually campaigning to find schools properly.

I don’t think it will be as bad as people think. We live an area which is council estates and million pound houses share the same street. The whole place is divided like that and we have what is called the “ middle class schools “ and them some less favourable schools
It ends up the exact same people who attend both settings despite all being in the same catchment. I don’t know a single person from our council estate who applied for London O and it’s next door so don’t worry too much about our wild uneducated offsprings ruining your children’s education.

@twistyizzy both my dd’s work full time and have both given and received help from other working parents with regard to school and extra curricular activities such as football etc.
Maybe it’s not the done thing where you live but it certainly is where I live.

No nice areas, no good schools.

But this is EXACTLY what Labour want to achieve - to bridge the gap. You can do it by improving schools in poor areas or making all school equally bad. They are going for later. Obviously

how does our children being able to attend the same school as your children make the school “ bad “

Perfectly put.

I have no idea about your children.

Read the thread to see what makes good or bad school.

children of working class parents due their crap parents is what makes school bad ?

this thread makes little sense to me glad are worried because it will be filled with children who have parents that don’t give a hoot about their children’s education etc and in turn brings a school down. If they don’t why are you worried about them even researching schools and outcomes and applying for a decent school out of catchment.

children of working class parents due their crap parents is what makes school bad ?

this thread makes little sense to me glad are worried because it will be filled with children who have parents that don’t give a hoot about their children’s education etc and in turn brings a school down. If they don’t why are you worried about them even researching schools and outcomes and applying for a decent school out of catchment.

= no aspirations 🙄