Map of English secondary schools by religious and socio-economic selection

[ErrolTheDragon]

This of English secondary schools by religious and socio-economic selection map from the Fair Admissions Campaign may be of interest.

At a glance, the 'heat map' explains why people living in certain parts of the country may have particularly strong views on this issue!

But isn't one of the criticisms by the Schools adjudicator that schools aren't even publishing their admissions policies in time so parents can't object to them within the deadline ? The Schools Adjudicator was scathing in her report:

'Schools that are their own admission authority have a responsibility to provide all the necessary information on their websites: it is more than time that they understood it is not an optional extra.'

straggle, yes, schools have been getting away with a lot in recent years. However, the latest admissions code introduced something significant .... the ability for anyone to complain about admissions arrangements, rather than just those directly affected (i.e. parents). That is why there has recently been some high profile complaints like this one.

The code sets out a strict timetable for raising complaints, otherwise there probably would have been more by now. Presumably there will be more next year. Schools are meant to publish their policies according to a certain timetable too, but if they don't then the adjudicator (or campaign groups) will only know about it if people complain.

I know of a grammar which is identified as 'Christian' but which (obv) selects on academic criteria not religious (a school can't select on both)

We have 2 state schools here that select by exam, gender, feeder school and baptism!

Going back a bit; someone mentioned that maybe schools should decide on their own selection criteria based on the desires of the local community- but surely that would just make the 'selection by house-price' brigade more secure?

Another point made is the idea that a school is 'bad' because it doesn't have a high enough percentage of DC on FSM or enough EAL DC- well, where I am, they'd have to search a fair way out to find enough FSM DC, and as for EAL- well (controversy alert) there are dozens of non-white DC at my DSs' school, but at home they speak the 'language of education', if you like, i.e. English. There sub-continental DC speak English with their parents, thus skew the stats as they are definitely 'effnick' but not EAL!

We have 2 state schools here that select by exam, gender, feeder school and baptism!

Oh, I thought the rules had changed - I know a couple of CofEs round here used to have some selection/aptitude tests but don't any more, I'd heard it was because they weren't allowed to any more but perhaps I was misinformer. One of those still does select using 'points' from a combination of church attendance, feeder school and - probably uniquely - whether the parent is a widow(er).

I think EAL is starting to be a redundant measure. All the stats I've seen exams and testing suggest it's the smallest gap to close (compared to deprivation, area, gender), and bilingual children often have even more learning potential.

I'm inclined to agree re EAL as it's not clear what possible outcome it's supposed to predict. Yes, I can see why FSM might be a strong indicator of possibly less able parents purely in that, statistically, if they don't earn enough to pay for their DC's school meals, they maybe haven't done that well in Life's Great Race; whereas EAL DC come from families where, often (but yes, not always), someone has uprooted a family and hauled them away from everything they know in order to 'better' themselves. Those DC may well have quite strong motivators towards success.

My guess is that as with the FSM, the EAL gives some clue about the 'social cohesion' factor, rather than anything to do with outcomes. It probably isn't the best metric but it's the one which is available.

Grammar schools have a higher proportion of EAL speakers than secondary modern schools. I think there's also a stereotype that EAL speakers = deprived immigrant groups, when in fact they could be rich Europeans and aspirational middle class Indians, Chinese, etc. - some ethnic groups represented more than others. So EAL as a measure is just as likely to represent an advantaged intake as disadvantaged. There are some statistics in this briefing.

Much bigger gap for SEN though. Would have been a better measure than EAL.

Yes, it might be good to have the SEN variances mapped too, those should be available.

I have some thoughts on this which I'll express tomorrow when on the laptop and can see map!

Note that the first link I attempted was a fail!

There you go, I knew the EAL measure is not an obstacle or a sign of disadvantage:

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10676475/Pupils-with-English-as-a-second-language-outperform-native-speakers.html