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.

generally yes as long as you can apply for exemption

older 3 attended local school but due tyo nastiness of one teacher I won't touch it with a bargepole for ds4: it is proveable and lea has been ionvolved though so think they would grant exemption.

It would also measn doing away with faith schools and despite being a Christiam I am fine with that

Obv. snu's etc need to exist and imo every school should have breakfast club provision

FA we have the opposite problem

school is basically a free posh enclave: botoxed mummy's and porsche cayennes abound and the com[p ot feeds to recently found that 92% of kids get private additionsal schooling

we could never afford that!

i'd much prefer a mix tbbh: then maybe ds1 wouldnt shout at me for being so poor he doesn't have his own lounge (ffs)

Pmsl at the idea in our area that you just choose the school you want and waltz into it! All primary schools in the borough are oversubscribed - I have applied to our local primary for DS, the catchment area last year was 800m and we are about 750m away so we stand a chance of getting in.

I knwo someone who had no primary place for their DC until July before starting and it was the otehr side of the (very busy) borough. How you deal with the school run then when you're working and not local to anyone else at the school and no breakfast club, I have no idea.

Fingers crossed that we get our local school.

Own lounge Blimey.

I have to admit I have a HUGE problem with 'faith schools'

nothing more than propaganda imo, indoctrination etc

ds understands NONE of it, 'wave your arms in the air with mercy' has nothing to do with the 2 times table, honestly, does it?

Blardy Percy Parker.

Actually, help me out here...Percy Parker does the times table songs, right? But did he do the mercy one as well? 'let's all count the hands'

maybe ds heard it wrong.
I am going mad.

Personally, I've been unable to read the thread because I'm crying with laughter at the idea that you actually get a choice!

Is UQD here with the "Choice, what choice?" line? Is Xenia here explaining how we all had the choice to earn more and therefore go private?

I don't think it would be better or worse but it would be different

Soupdragon - snap!

I hope not quattrocentro, I do so tire of being called a prostitute at 3 in the afternoon!

I am in a slight different position from what I can see from these posts. (sort off)

If we had stayed at our previous address, ds would have went to the worst school in the county!, me and dh were thinking of sending him to private schooling, we did not as children, and we wanted "our children" to have diversity and also know cultural backgrounds and meet people from all "class" backgrounds also, to us this was important, as alot of our inner circle come from different "class groups".

When ds1 was about 6 months old we done alot of research into the different schools and done a list of what schools we thought were suitable and also when older what schools would suit his personality. Their was 3 excellent schools and we had meetings with the heads of the schools, asking various questions etc.....

We sold our previous house and moved location to one that would be 30 mins distance to ALL 3 schools, incidentally also our mortgage payments tripled (even with a hefty deposit) , due to school attachment area

When ds was 3 we enrolled him into a school which we know/hope suits him (currently attends the attached Nursery and so far he loves and suits his personality).

Today, and I am ecstatic, we got our letter to say he has been accepted into the school so it has been worthwhile to do this, we took a massive gamble and it has worked out for us.

I believe people should do what they think suits their children, as maybe their local catchment school is not going to meet their children's needs/ or parents wants...

MillyR requested evidence: nothing that would stand up in court, obviously - but the school our DCs started at last summer went into special measures a couple of weeks later. Among the many things Ofsted were dissatisfied with was the governing body, which was weak because it was so difficult to recruit governors at all, let alone good ones. DH has since become a governor, and I know that his contribution to the school is much appreciated, as is the contribution made by all the others who serve in the same way, most, but not all, of whom are what would be deemed 'middle class' in these parts.

As someone who works in a failing school normally, where as mentioned earlier teachers are feeding the pupils and playing the role of parents to many..as much as I would love this idea in principle I can't see it working. The area that the school is in does not attract people with the means to live elsewhere...so the demographic of the school is unlikely to change unless they alter the catchment area dramatically to include the nicer areas. As such, the population of the area is never going to change so the population of the school won't either...meaning there will always be 'sink' schools fed by 'sink' estates...does that make sense?

I am on placement in a state school at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. It is in my home town which is a very 'naice', expensive area with high house prices. The school here has gone from strength to strength...as more and more wealthy, 'naice' people move into the area with hig expectations of their children's school. This is self-fulfilling because now house prices in the catchment area are over £30k AT LEAST more than the equivalent elsewhere in the area.

But on the other side of town is a very big ex HA and council estate that no-one wants to live in. The school in the middle of it is rough, but has the highest value added of all schools in the County because of the great things they do for their population. That will not make 'naice' people want their children to go there, because the reason they do so well is because the kids come in with every problem under the sun, and the highest level of social deprivation in the County.

Unless there is more equality in society, schools won't change even if you make people send their kids to the local school, which happens in many areas anyway.

Sorry, by home town I meant the town that I live in as against the town I grew up in...I haven't moved that far for a placement!

ROFL at ATP. Are you on your back dear? It must be time to assume the position now ...

I often think this too, YANBU at all, you are spot on.

Purpleturtle, your children do not have to attend a school for your husband to become a governor - it is the presence of your husband that is improving the school, not the presence of your children.

It would say far more about people's committment to ensuring an equal society if more people became governors at schools that there children did not attend. The head of our governors is not a teacher and has no children at the school.

Oh, please - leave the independent schools out of your little revolution.

And think about why you would want to ban something because it is too good.

Here in Sydney your local school HAS to take you - primary and secondary - so in theory everyone is able to go to their nearest school. In a lot of areas you can even choose whether you want mixed or single sex for high school. BUT, walk past every bus stop at 8am and there are kids wearing the uniforms of half a dozen different schools, some of them miles away.

The reality is that parents WANT to be able to choose if that is possible.

well we moved nothing to do with school places but for personal reasons and Omg trying to sort out school places for my dc.

Ds is in Y8 and has taken me 8 weeks to secure a place as near me all schools primary and senior controll their own admissions/appeals and the schools were full as children come in from the next county where the senior schools pass rates are a lot lower .
Took me 2 appeals and even then Ds has only secured a place under their specialism admissions .

Im now looking at schools for DD atm she is currently in school in next county due to lack of spaces in Y2 though am happy enough keep her there if can get transport to help.Village primary is at end of my road litterally 3 mins walk and can`t all be local kids since theres only about 30 houses sin village

Ds3 i was expecting take longer due to sn but not the others

But when we moved as kids we would see school one day start the next

oh and im not judging anyone that has done it playimng devils advocate i can see why people send dc out of county becuase i sure as hell would of , were talking pass rates of 27% to pass rates of minum of 75% .

but still does not help me secure a place for my dc and yes it is considered a posh area no im not posh more got lucky none wanted my house due to trainline and breakdown yard at back so rental was cheap and he would take Hb

But then i lived before hand in a town with 1 senior school mixed intake as coucil and private houses some cheap some not so cheap

and it was a very good school so it can work

Our local primary school is full of local children. Most walk to school.
I volunteer there and it is not a good place.

Forcing the handful of us who live locally and don't use it to go there would change nothing. These children are disadvantaged by their home lives from the start. All you would do would make my DCs join the misery.

I'mm all for the lottery system. This way we dont have the ghetto thing going on. My nearest school is fed by a council sink estate and I think 80% of the kids cant speak English!!!! would be much better to mix them up with the middle class kids then all schools on an equal footing

This will piss of people that spend £100K extra to be in a catchment areas, but am I bovvered? NO

I don't think this would work.

An example: one school near us has an entire council estate as its catchment area. (I have nothing against council estates, I have lived on one in the past) but because of its intake of pupils (a high number of whom have no interest in learning) the school is a pretty bad place. Special measures, police on-site, fires, fights, drugs ... you name it. Now, also in this catchment area is around four long streets of large, private housing. I don't know one person that lives down these streets that would even consider allowing their kids to go to this school. (And I do know a few). When it comes to secondary age, they simply go private or move.

Infact, I moved out of this catchment area myself for the very same reasons.

People just wouldn't tolerate being forced to send their kids to specific schools just because of where they lived. It would make the system even more unfair.

I think success would depend on the catchment areas being drawn carefully to ensure a mixed intake for all schools, which wouldnt work in all areas. However, I think the current system can exacerbate a tendency for one school to get much worse.

As an example, when I was growing up and you just got assigned a school, there were 2 mixed comprehensives i our town(plus 2 single sex CofE schools and the Catholic school).The faith schools were undersubscribed as the comps got better exam results, so if you wanted faith school, you got it, and everyone else was assigned one of the two comps. One was marginally better than the other but nothing to cry about and definitely nothing to add another 30 mins to your journey for if you lived on the "slightly less good school" side of town.

Then when parents got a choice, a lot of people who lived equi-distant chose the "better school" just because it was 3-4% "better" and then every year this would gather pace and now the differences are quite marked to the extent that parents assigned what is now a considerably worse school, would probably consider private.

In a way "choice" made parents feel "obliged" to go for the better school as otherwise they were failing their kids, whereas when they were just assigned one, the difference was tiny and no-one felt bad about it.

Choice requires surplus. There is no surplus in most places.