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

Great idea. Level across the classes. Stop the rich middle from hogging grammar school places

The irony, before the 60s politics of envy, the 'rich middle' didn't hog the places, there were enough to go round, thanks to Liebour we're where we are now, only a few brave areas have retained their grammar schools.

Yes it did.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdr5mr5l2d1o.amp

Couldn’t agree more.

What a load of shite.

Even kids who have parents who work need to go to school.

I think this is another policy that is just gonna turn people against the Laboir Party.

People who go to work are not the enemy. They are just people who have kids and the same bills as everyone else.

The thing is a huge amount of us on UC or getting FSM work and we don’t have resources to pay for extra travel and we are short on time. This will make lives harder not easier

If anything, wouldn’t this push up house prices? Fewer catchment places = more desirable?

Im sure I read that Keir’s kids went to a school with a very small catchment of expensive houses. Wonder if he regrets that now.

Interesting how you see the removal of a privilege as “being screwed over”, rather than equal access to good schools being good for all and not just the rich

Anyway pretty sure my local grammar does this anyway.

Except only a minute amount of kids on FSM pass the test, because they can't afford the tutoring anyway.

Mine is going to the local comprehensive that isn't popular cos it's got a bad rep.

Everyone told me not to send her there.

But it's easier cos it's a 10 minute walk from home.

But it's got a new headteacher and now part of an academy and I'm able to support my own kid woth schoolwork/ arrange tutoring if needed- she'll be fine wherever she goes. It's just easier if she can go to our local. It was rated inadequate for years.

But the new Policy is just shite.

And makes Labour sound idiotic.

How do you plan on equalising opportunity when child A is brought up by 2 highly educated parents in a nice home with a nice sibling and is supported with everything in life from homework to driving lessons to emotional wellbeing with a supportive wider family around them and child B is the youngest of 5 born to a drug taking single mother in an overcrowded flat with no dad involved? You can’t. It’s ideology without any reference to what’s actually going on.

Will you make the better off family subsidise a car and driving lessons for the worse off kid for example? I actually know someone, aged 17, who has just been gifted a brand new very trendy car. Lives in a 2m mansion. Guess that family’s next move…….emigration (yes really it’s in progress)

Typical Labour - drag everyone down to the lowest level instead of tackling the root cause - poor schools, lack of investment into parental education and the economy. Because those aren't the cheap, quick win votes that Labour are interested in. I'm so glad my kids will soon be grown up and I won't have to worry about this social engineering nonsense.

It's sound bites.

They need to.improve standards rather than make it harder for everyone.

Someone upthread referred to “sharp-elbowed middle classes”. I have not applied for a state school place for some time but, from memory, we read a few Ofsted reports, spoke to some other people near us, had a look at cut off distances from previous years, filled in the online form and submitted it before the deadline. Isn’t that stuff just common sense and a normal part of being a parent? Those who hadn’t looked into schools were not being prevented from doing so by those who had done a bit of research.

On the other hand, I remember speaking with someone who lived in one of the estates behind our house. I asked whether her son went to <school that people like me really wanted> (she easily lived close enough). “Oh no” she said. “We don’t go there, it isn’t our sort of thing”. She knew the local schools and had been put off the “desirable” one.

Agreed. It might reduce the number of fraudulent applications too.

There are two possibilities here.

1. Some schools perform poorly because of the school itself and teaching there. Why are Labour not trying to bring the standards of poor schools up rather than just moving children around? A state provided service should provide equal opportunities. It should not be a postcode lottery.

2. Some schools perform better than others because of the type of pupils they attract; higher parental involvement has been shown to improve pupils’ outcomes. If that is the case, moving other pupils to those schools won’t improve the outcomes for those children.

Going to your nearest state school isn’t a privilege. It’s a basic expectation.

like I said, glad mine are grown up. And not planning to have kids of their own.

Local grammar already do this to a certain extent.

Though it doesn't make a difference cos the it's so difficult to pass the test. You need months of tutoring to pass the test.

Maybe they need to make tutoring more affordable.

Surely the elephant in the room is that good schools have good (at least behaviour-wise) pupils? If you swapped every pupil at my dcs’ school (ordinary comp) with every pupil at the school in the next town you’d be back at square one. And also the teachers would move with them - unless that was banned…

I particularly chose a school for the dcs where they (and the vast majority of pupils) walked to school. Everyone going here there and everywhere - ridiculous.

we read a few Ofsted reports, spoke to some other people near us, had a look at cut off distances from previous years, filled in the online form and submitted it before the deadline. Isn’t that stuff just common sense and a normal part of being a parent? Those who hadn’t looked into schools were not being prevented from doing so by those who had done a bit of research.

No, not all parents do that. Many parents are happy, for whatever reason, to send their child to the nearest school, or to a school which is most convenient practically for them, regardless of how that school performs. There are too many families who aren’t particularly interested in education. The suggested policy won’t help improve outcomes for exactly this reason; many parents simply won’t bother applying to schools further away even if they have better educational outcomes.

Of course. It’s all downwards with Labour. Relieved we’re mostly through too.

Absolulty not. Improve the schools in the poorer areas don't drag everyone else down

Look forward to attending the meetings where you'll be encouraged to increase your hours.

his kids went to Eleanor Palmer with a catchment in the yards and an average house price of £2mill

He’s a hypocrite

Astonishing that the Telegraph can put out an article that it admits has been made up entirely by the Conservatives and people are already treating it as nailed-on Labour policy.

We live quite far away from our primary school.

And had to apply for middle school. The infant school is from reception to year 2. Then junior school from Year 3 to year 6.

Though unlikely there was a small chance we may not get a place when they love from year year 2 to 3.

All the kids classes are kept the same when they move up and the junior school is it a different site.

Anyway the deadline to apply was end of Jan. I had applied within the first week of October.

Its a 3 form entry so 90 kids in total in Year 3.
Start of Feb we get an eMail from the infant school- they were reminding the parents about the application as there has only been 78 applications made.

Anyway saved the email in case we needed appeal a place in case we didn't get in and something dodgy happened.

For some even just filling out forms on time is probably being sharp-elbowed.