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

Based on the principle that a child will 'suffer' by going to a less popular school, then equally, why should a child 'suffer' due to their parents working hard and made 'good' choices.

Also, the cohort is partly what makes a school better. Every school gets the same amount of money, same number of teachers etc(actually schools eith high numbers of FSM get more funding as pupil premium) , the difference between the good school and a struggling school is often the cohort, the amount of time teachers have to spend dealing with behavioural issues, poor attendance etc vs actual teaching, parental engagement etc.

The one issue I can see raising its head, is transport to school. Currently, most areas will provide transport to schools a certain distance away / unsafe routes only if they are the nearest suitable school.

If there are a few schools in walking distance then fine, but if parents can't logistically get their children to these schools anyway, it isn't going to help.

I think it definately could pick up people moving away from Labour.

If we are levelling things up, the fee paying/public schools should be incorporated into the state system and included too.

the emphasis shouldn’t be on which children get to go to the better school it should be on why are some schools failing ? Get all schools to a certain standard, improve education for all regardless of background or location. Cast the net wide to make sure every school is a good option rather than having this situation where you have to pick and choose who gets the better opportunity and education?

The problem is that 'normal' families like I consider mine to be, has gone through several different types of jobs, etc.
There was a time when both DH and I were out of work at the same time, and relying on Job Seekers Allowance, etc.
Then a time when we both had fairly average or just above average pay jobs (but being two of us, our household income would have seemed well-off). So our lives have gone through multiple stages.
Presumably, it is just the stage when one applies to the school.
The second problem with this, is that if too many children are not going to their local school, this means more journeys across towns, etc as children cross backwards and forwards.

Or be able to stay for after school activities and sports. We were constantly late and in trouble at our school because we lived too far away to walk and the buses were very infrequent, and anything after school meant we had a long wait for a bus or a really long walk home, it made life miserable. In big cities schools may be close together, but apart from those situations randomly assigning places will be horrible for children and parents.

Local council pay for students transport if you’re more than 3miles away
( I think that’s still the distance, it was a few years back )

It could have a huge impact on parents getting to work on time as well it’s just not a well thought out idea at all

Yep, it’s all grade A bull shit. Seems to be designed to prevent higher tax payers (who have the financial autonomy to pay fees/or move) from having the freedom of choice. How long before these higher rate tax payers decide not to play along and instead think more globally about their careers? Not long I suspect.

So this could generate huge costs to meet transport needs and that money could have been better spent on improving all schools !

47 (14%) kids were offered FSM places at Blatchlington Mill and 49 (15%) at Dorothy Stringer so I guess the catchment for distance criterion shrunk for 15% or even less, as part of those kids would get in by distance criterion anyway.

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/children-and-learning/allocation-factsheet-year-7-places-september-2025

Exactly

Labour seem to be accepting some schools are just crap. In fact this very policy is an admission of that.

They seem to be ignoring the elephant in the room

Exactly
and many councils are struggling to pay for the transport as it is.
Here’s Kent’s bill
and this doesn’t even include the free bus passes that the majority of eligible kids use

Also if there is genuine concern over pupils getting FSM they could look at alternative options such as increasing pupil premium or adding more enrichment activities in all schools for those on FSM instead they are looking at doing something which will not actually help outcomes and will land local
authorities with big bills for transport .

Exactly. This policy is a typical labour race to the bottom approach.

Schools with a high number of FSM already get significant extra funding (pupil premium) to try to balance the gap. Which is doesn't, as parental support and expectation is the single biggest influence of educational outcomes. A bright child with supportive ambitious parents will do well in any school.

We also have a child mental health and obesity crisis, and should be supporting children walking to school, and development and integration into local communities is crucial for families, the 'it takes a village to raise a child' concept. My daughter used to attend an 'outstanding' school in London, we moved to a village with a 'good' rated primary - her mental health is so much better as her friends now live within a 10 minute max walk from our house and there is a sense of commuinity and support, and her educational acheivement has improved as she is happier.If children are forced to attend schools further from their home it's worse for their social needs, worse for their physical health, worse for the environment with more driving, worse for the local commuinity with traffic, parking issues, harder for working families to juggle drop offs and pick ups.
It won't affect me as both mine are already in school, but on principle I think this policy is a terrible idea.

Surely a better policy would be to actually invest in poorly performing schools and bring them up to scratch!
Are people really going to want to have to get 2 buses/a bus and a train to & from school every morning if its miles away? It’s not really a practical workable plan.

Or reduce diversity and lose all the best teachers….

Yes it will be impossible for some parents to juggle this and exhausting for the children ?

Next thing KS will probably says he’s going to start school sleepover clubs as well as breakfast clubs (and expect schools to fund that themselves too!) 🤦

"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"

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? Are there any suggestions from Labour that they intend to amend the schools admissions process?

How would that work? Who would cover the costs of those schools, that are currently covered by the parents of those attending?

Bloody stupid idea. So locally that would mean all the kids from the deprived end of town travelling across town to the better school, and all the kids from the wealthy part of town travelling the other way to the worst schools. When both cohorts have schools on their doorsteps. Neither is walkable or cyclable from across town, the commute would be into town, change buses, and another bus to other end of town.

Absolutely, but that would involve levelling up education, not levelling down. The former is complicated and expensive, the latter not so much. Keir Starmer knows precisely what he’s doing, the man is an absolute weasel.

OP have you got anything that backs up your thread title?

How does everyone feel about the socially deprived getting priority for NHS treatment as well?