Winchester- redrawing all its catchment boundaries...

[Tansie]

here

It is more 'ooi' but might it affect you?

I'm sure it will affect many. Bear with me here: I am thinking of the Romsey situation. Romsey is 8 miles from Winchester and 3 miles from northern Southampton which had some dire and seriously failing comps. 2 have closed and have been amalgamated into a shiney new religious sponsored academy (!). As a result, a fair few parents are sending their DC from northern Southampton to Romsey. This has meant it's harder for DC in 'outlying' villages to get a place in the Romsey comps if they're non-catchment and it will affect DC from across the county boundary, 6 miles away who fail the 11+ and who want a comp not a SM as the alternative. It has also meant (hush) that there have been a few more 'social issues' at the 2 Romsey comps as its intake becomes more 'socially diverse' with the Southampton kids intake. SO quite a few parents take fright and send their DC all the way to Winchester, to Kings. Also, where I live, our local secondaries catchments bisect the estate. One end goes to the best performing comp in the county, academically; the other to a school with some real issues. SO some of those parents also choose to send to either one of the Romsey comps or Kings in Winchester.

I wonder if that option will exist post this reshuffle?

[LettyAshton]

Not many children getting off the no. 1 bus at Thornden from Southampton! I know people living in Valley Park who sent their dcs to a feeder school but failed to win places (went to Hampshire Collegiate instead). Some years children out of catchment do get in, but from as far away as Southampton? Not unless they pretend they reside with their granny in Hiltingbury (which apparently a few do).

[LittenTree]

I don't blame you at all for getting your DC into MB rather than OA, Talking, but I was merely pointing out that OA is your local school, whatever you might say about MB, and remember you are the one proposing that DC get no 'choice' other than their local school!

It just might also be fair to say that perhaps Oaklands wasn't 'a reasonable school' back then, as much as a) you were, pre-DC, far less into the minutiae of achievement in schools and b) the barriers were much lower- you didn't need an Eng Bacc to get anywhere, like you do today! People accepted mediocrity in education way more than they do today (SMs, anyone?).

But I do agree that the academy thing hasn't been thought through. Personally, I don't want a 'community lead school' any more than I want a 'patient lead' health service, thanks. I would rather the government oversaw them both, in the absence of an impartial, apolitical Body of experts doing it! But even then, you'd get someone trying to Make A Name for themselves as A Great Reformer and experimenting with blue sky thinking then coming up with sponsored academies (and GP lead health commissioning...).

I don't look as the Winchester changes as a fig leaf in that they're not setting out to fundamentally change the way school places are allocated in Hampshire, are they, just 'fixing' a local problem? Which of course might have a knock on effect regarding what lengths parents might have to go to to get the ideal school. Someone said earlier something like 'first Winchester, tomorrow Southampton and Southern Hampshire' but I don't think so. The harsh reality is the MC parents are the ones deemed to have the power (cos they can be relied upon to vote), so it'd take a brave politician to take the Thorndens, Kings and even MBs away from them, whereas the shifting, disengaged 'masses' can, it seems be disregarded, their schools just hand-wrung over.

[TalkinPeace2]

So true.
I was aware of school performance stats before having kids because of DH's PGCE and subsequent line of work
but yes the noisy MC stuff (like Cameroon asking this website to advise on policy when half the posters seem to have their kids either at Grammar or private school!!) is NOT good for social mobility

Seeing how the technocrats are sorting out politicians messes in southern Europe makes me even more sure that user led systems are indeed doomed to failure : and sadly our kids are the guinea pigs!

BTW I admit to going with the flow in not using catchment - BUT if the flow moved back the other way I'd not start threads on AIBU protesting ....