to think it would be better if everyone went to their local school.

[assumetheposition]

I'm talking hypothetically and not criticising anyone who sends their child to different school, given the current circumstances etc

BUT

on the whole, in theory, do you think giving parents a choice over school has made schools better, or has it just given those children with conscientious parents even more of an advantage as they will fight for the best schools.

This follows on from a walking to school thread but actually, lots of children at DSs school drive past lots of perfectly good schools to get to ours (no special measures, all good against the country average etc) making traffic a nightmare.

If everyone was forced to go to their local school wouldn't every school be better? Or would it just make house prices even more ridiculous in good catchments.

It may also involve banning independent and faith schools.

I'm no longer in London either.

The reason DS will not be going to our local school (which is lovely and I would prefer him to) is that we both work. He will need to go to a school which is close to my work - it takes me about 30 minutes to get to work.

We also need him to go to breakfast club. The local school does not have one. If I had to drop him to school at 9 and then go to work I wouldnt be in my office til nearly 10 am as I wouldnt be able to park even close by at that time and it would be a 20 minute walk.

So I will drop him to breakfast club at 8 and get to work by 8.20 ish and be able to park. This means I can then leave earlier most days and pick him up.

I wondered that too assume, I am not even in the UK so consequentlly have far fewer schools to 'choose' from. When I went to secondary, I really don't remember my parents having a choice. I was going to X because my junior school fed it.

It may also involve banning independent and faith schools.

Close the Muslim schools then come back and let us know how you got on.

I agree except for certain circumstances- e.g. my dd can't go to her nearest school because it is not wheelchair adapted. Her friend goes because this one school offers bereavement counselling. But otherwise, yes it would be better if all schools offered a reasonable quality and you just went to the nearest.

I aggree with the OP then all schools will get their share of good and bad pupils

No they won't.

Selection by house price will become even more entrenched than it already is.

Obviously there will always be certain exceptions (special needs etc) but I hadn't thought about the whole distance from work issue.

When I was at school there was no choice in primary school and we had a good mix of rich,poor, clever, no so clever and we all seemed to bumble along nicely.

It seems to me that Governments have been so intent of giving us choice that actually, all it has done is make us more stressed, more complicated and in many cases with no choice at all.

Get Ed Balls on the phone.

I agree with you, OP that the fact parents have a choice probably lead to the big differenced fron a school to another but I think there can be several factors to choose a school at longer distance. Of the 2 schools in my catchment 1 was of religious denomination which was not what I wanted for my Dcs, the other one had a headteacher that made me feel very uncomfortable when I visited the school and I could not take the risque of having my children in a school where I would be scared of voicing concerns for fear of not being taken seriously. So we got to a school, out of catchment but reasonably close for us to still be walking there.

Kreecher, I remember back home not having a choice, we would go to the village primary and then secondary school attached to it (in my case my village one was also fed by two smaller neighbouring villages). Definitely easier than the hurdle of finding a high school here in the uk

The problem is, it can only really work in a society with relatively small differences in incomes and desirability of locations. Otherwise, it will indeed end up as assume says. But in theory, it's what I would like to happen. On the assumption that all schools are made to provide equally well for their pupils etc etc.

but ninedragons, I'm not sure that it would (but I could be wrong), because if it were the case there would be far less 'bad' schools.

The whole good school bad school thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once a school edges ahead in the league tables, more wealthy and affluent people or those who are proactive about education want to send their children there and so move into the catchment or fight to get in. The school continues to attract bright pupils and so it goes on and therefore the catchment area becomes attractive.

It's a vicious circle but can be stopped I tell you

I think it would just make house prices in good catchment areas even higher. If you could start from a position where all schools were equally good, it would work fine, but that's not the reality.

Where we used to live, there were 11 schools, ranging from very good, selective grammar schools to failing schools. As it was, the brightest children, with the most proactive parents had the best chances of getting into either the grammar schools or the best comprehensives.

If we'd had to go to our nearest school, all three of mine would have ended up at one of the grammar schools, and though clearly all the schools would have become comprehensive under the OP's system, the grammar schools would still have been the best schools, because they would still have 6 years of selective intake pupils on their books (assuming you wouldn't make pupils leave their current schools and go to the nearest one), plus the long tradition of excellence, motivation, discipline etc.

So the catchment areas of the good schools would be even more attractive (as one could get one's child into a previously selective school without having to do the 11+) and that would send houseprices rocketing.

Having had two dses go through the senior schools admissions process in that area, I was very glad indeed to move to somewhere where there was one good school, we were in catchment, ds3 was at the feeder primary, and there was none of the stress of selection tests, and waiting to see if he'd been allocated a place at the school of our choice. But, the fact that we live in a village with a very good senior school puts a premium on houseprices round here, especially as the next nearest senior schools are pretty poor.

we actually moved 2 mins away from a good school so we didn't have to travel far to get there. After doing a 45 min school run each way it does make such a difference

Nope.

I think there should be buses to take lots of dc from "satisfactory" and special measures primaries in, say, Peckham, to secondary at, say Fortismere, or DAO. and maybe a train journey out into Hamps, etc.

And back the other way.

Mix it up a bit.

going off at a slight tangent, don't you think that the lottery system would stop the whole hike in house prices of property near good or outstanding schools?

and mean a mixture of pupils went to each school. (they really need to add an edit button)

Lottery system still tickles me.

Reducing the problem of a shockingly iniquitous state education system to Willy Wonka.

"Hurray, I have a golden ticket! I get to do science! At a school with no police vans outside at lunch time!"

[sorry. I am off to write a hundred times "I will not read educcation threads."]

I certainly think the current situation is awful. You have people ferrying kids in all directions which massively increases traffic on the roads. Then friends are spread out over a huge area so the culture of walking to call on a friend from a young-ish age is lost in a lot of places.

I know of people whose child was the only one from their primary not to be offered a place at the secondary it fed too - so this poor child was not only sent to an inferior school but also split from all their friends. Awful.

The lottery system could well mean that parents could end up with all their children at different schools. If we'd stayed where we were, we would have ended up with that - ds1 and 2 at selective schools, and ds3 at the catchment comprehensive, and I was dreading it, even though it was our choice to put the boys in for the 11+ and to give them some say in which school they wanted to go to.

It was going to mean three lots of uniform, all different and with no passing down of expensive kit, three separate lots of term dates, in service days, parents evenings, and three websites to check for snowdays etc - it would have been a nightmare, but we'd have coped because it got the boys a good education at the schools they, and we, liked.

If we'd been forced into that system by a lottery, I would have been very unhappy indeed.

Plus, a lottery system could mean that a very sporty child ended up at a school that excelled in Arts or Drama, or vice versa.

DS goes to a school where the children have to do one and a half hours homework a night. At our local secondary they don't even do one and half hours homework a week. That is a genuine difference between schools that parents are choosing between. People have different opinions on how much work they want their children to do. There must be lots of other cases where people are picking schools based on differences in ethos.

I have not sent DS to the school with the best exam results at either Primary or Secondary level, although I could have done. It is not as simple as saying everyone goes on league tables - they don't. There are genuine differences in styles of education that parents are making decisions on - that is why we have parental choice.

Of course there are problems with the current system, but the answer may lie in ensuring communities are more mixed rather than trying to resolve the problems in schools first.

You'd have to do so much social levelling to even begin to think about such a programme.

It's easier to offer parents choice (real or illusionary) than it is to put social housing for refugees in SW1 and abolish faith schools. Spreading the deprived around geographically would have to be the starting point for a strict catchment system if you wanted to avoid selection by house price.

I think the answer lies in a society with smaller differentials between groups.

Not in "education, education, education" at all.

When Labour decided to get friendly with free and unfettered capitalism the only mechanism they were left with to effect some kind of amelioration of the worst effects of massive social disjunction was education.

The education system was never going to be able to fulfill that role. In fact, what we see is an education system finding it hard to cope with the vastly differing life-experiences, expectations and needs of children coming into it.

If we really wanted to make all schools halfway decent, I suspect we'd have to START with a more equal society. Not hope that a vastly over-burdened, over-demanded-of education system can deliver that. As well as GCSEs and A levels.

"When I was at school there was no choice in primary school and we had a good mix of rich,poor, clever, no so clever and we all seemed to bumble along nicely."

That is how it is here.

There is only ONE LEA - a national one. All schools offer the same in terms of before school club from 7 am, and after school club till 5 pm, with only slight variations.

OP I kind of agree

DS does not go to the nearest school. WE need pre and afterschool care, and we did not want to send him to a faith school (and our nearest ones, whilst CofE, are surprisingly "churchy") . It is a humungous pain, and I wish we could walk there in 10 minutes rather than 40 or get a bus.

I do think if everyone just went to the nearest school (like apparently, according to my mother, we did when I was a girl), it would largely even out a lot of the inequalities, especially if funding was channelled into adressing the problems in the less successful schools.

I do think all this "choice" malarkey in education/healthcare etc is largely a red herring, and simply means the issues of inadequate provision go unaddressed.

So, if we went back to catchment only, and a failing school in a poor area became outstanding and had the best results etc, etc, you would have people fighting to get into it by moving into high rise flats and problem estates? I just don't think this would happen. What people always seem to skate around is why this happens. Why is it that schools in poorer areas are less successful and are undersubcribed. Is it really the standards of results or is it a bit of snobbery?
I suppose I like to look at things in a simple way but surely, you invest more money, a lot more money where the schools are not up to scratch to improve them.
Or is it that no matter how much money you throw at them, because of the majority of families that send their children to these schools, they are never going to improve enough to make them desirable to parents who live elsewhere?

Absolutely agree with you assumetheposition. It's madness here with cars dropping off when they've driven past 3-5 perfectly good schools on their way. It drives me mad. Think of the pollution. Also, (gets on high horse) as we live relatively near London we know people who daily drive to jobs that are 75 plus miles away ... utter madness.