Surge in school admission lotteries??

[Tansie]

here

Makes me shudder and be grateful that my two are safely in their naice, leafy, MC comp, one that I got them into by buying a house in the catchment.

"The head of one major chain of academies said it was no longer “inherently fair or good for our society” to let parents move into the catchment area of a leading school to get a place."

So, the only DC who will stand any chance of 'getting the good jobs' will be from a private or academically selective school, in other words. Until that glaring inherently unfair loophole is closed, I shall do what I can for my DC. FGS don't take that away, the only thing that us less well-off parents can do to increase our DC's life chances! And no, I have no problem whatsoever with my DC sitting in classes with 'forrin' DC, working class DC or managed SEN DC (DC whose SEN is being properly attended to so the DC can participate in mainsteam education before I get flamed for that)- providing they're all singing from the same hymn sheet in terms of values. As are the DC at my DC's school. What I do have a problem with is that my DC's academic band could condemn them to a school miles away in a grotty area with a disastrous disciplinary record.

All this may do is 'dumb down' all schools since it has been shown that you actually only need a couple of drop-kick DC in a class to wreck the lesson for the rest. Sure, there are potentially such DC at my DC's school but they are utterly in the minority and their behaviour is rigorously managed.

I am glad that one can still effectively buy that. And yes, there are council houses in the catchment, and small 3 br flats. Though yes, I also concede the housing is largely 3-4 br privately owned and most parents in the area are here because of the school.

[GuinevereOfTheRoyalCourt]

But that is to confuse attainment and ability. I thought fair banding was typically done using CAT tests? My understanding was that these are IQ type tests, is that not the case?

If all poor children are "low ability" then it isn't surprising that they didn't achieve as good results as wealthier children of "high ability". That's not really the problem. The problem is that, actually, with the right support many of these disadvantaged children are perfectly able and can go on to achieve.

The difficulty is trying to address this without screwing the system up completely so that it actually makes things worse for everyone.

I don't think we should assume that disadvantaged children will automatically do better at these socially selective oversubscribed schools either. I was actually digging around the statistics for the schools near me at both primary and secondary level. FSM children typically did much worse at the most exclusive schools than they did at less popular ones.

[maillotjaune]

But the advantage often bought by mc parents for 11+ tests is removed - there is no point tutoring to get into the top band because the school will not only select the children with the highest test score.

Current IQ style tests for 11+ selection can be prepared for, putting the children of parents without funds for tutoring / time or ability to help prepare their child themselves at a big disadvantage. Knowing there is no advantage that being in any particular band is a real change.

[Tansie]

What's a value added score of 1028 considered to be, out of interest? Is that good or rubbish? I'd not taken much notice of them but that what my DC's 'socially exclusive, leafy MC' (or so I'm repeatedly told here!) comp gets.

"If all poor children are "low ability" then it isn't surprising that they didn't achieve as good results as wealthier children of "high ability". That's not really the problem. The problem is that, actually, with the right support many of these disadvantaged children are perfectly able and can go on to achieve."

• I think many thousands of £ and much heartache and effort has been thrown at this- and guess what? In real terms, DC from poor families continue to under-perform. What is 'the right support'? Can it be wrought by the same 'magic' that apparently makes my DC's comp 'excellent'? I think not. As I have said about 20 times so far, the reason my DC's school succeeds is because its intake is entirely school ready. There are few debilitating social problems, the DC are relatively easy to teach and the parents are on-side and are what I call 'MC valued' even though some live in £600 pcm 2 bedroom flats. They believe in education and expect their DC to perform. The teachers are teaching, not fire-fighting.
  

If one were to introduce 'fair banding', firstly DC would have to start travelling bigger distances; and if we assume that 'disadvantage' breeds less good educational outcomes, guess what? In 3 or 4 years, Th would become another 'bog standard comp'. The wealthier parents will have fled to the privates (of which there are surprisingly few around here as most of the the wealthier DC go to the good local comps). Sure the one or two 'poor schools' locally might improve a bit, but the injection of a certain number of MC DC won't miraculously turn a feral chair-fight of a lesson into a well-disciplined, productive one.

So yes, you say "The difficulty is trying to address this without screwing the system up completely so that it actually makes things worse for everyone". Indeed it is.

And I agree that "I don't think we should assume that disadvantaged children will automatically do better at these socially selective oversubscribed schools either". As "FSM children typically did much worse at the most exclusive schools than they did at less popular ones".

Anecdotally, there was a TV show in Oz a few years ago where a disruptive, difficult, endlessly expelled (Aboriginal) boy from a chaotic family was admitted to one of the best private boys schools in Oz to demonstrate that 'the savage can be tamed' by being surrounded by hard-working, focused disciplined boys (NO racism intended here, I should add! The 'savage' reference is to the indiscipline of the boy, not his race!). He was asked to leave after less than a term. He simply had too many issues and the school, like ours, wasn't 'set up' to deal with such.

Which leads me to a seminal point: IMO, most NS DC who under-achieve at school do so due to the chaos or neglect of their home lives.

And I chose Th for my DCs because yes, it obviously does well by its clever DC, but also by its less-clever DC. The middle 'sets', such as they are (they pride themselves on minimal setting)- are full of the less able being appropriately taught, not, as in many schools, the able-enough but can't be arsed. They are the shame of our education system, but I don't think 5 odd hours of contact time in school, 5 days a week 40 weeks a year turns around years of poor or absent parenting.

I'm still relieved that there are ways for me to avoid having to help my DC cope with these DC as they wreck everyone's education..

[AgaPanthers]

I am not sure what a single anecdote about an aboriginal 'savage' is supposed to prove.

And your £600 pcm flat dwellers don't have special values, it is simply a case of excluding the poorest, which the school proveably does.

[maillotjaune]

Fucking hell Tansie.

[FiscalCliffRocksThisTown]

Tansie,

Did you know Thornden is actually good with/for kids with SEN.

They are so good that they even get children out of catchment sent there by LEA.

One of DS's friends with complicated SEN and a statement has been accepted there despite not being in catchment.

Anyway, I sort of know what you are saying but you seem focussed only on your own DC and not on education in general, which comes across a bit iyswim.

The "savage" experiment proves nothing, IMO.

[DraggingDownDownDown]

Our local secondary - which is 0.8miles away! - has gone from catchment to fair banding this year. I am so so worried as all the other secondary schools are a bus ride away which is a HUGE problem as my son has special needs but does not have a statement. This school also has things in place that would best meet his needs whereas the other schools don't.

The way I interpreted the admission policy is that those who are in the top ability bands have a greater chance of getting in still. Really think we are going to have a meltdown of epic proportions tomorrow from DS (autistic etc) as he would have been banded in the lower bands

[Soveryupset]

Mmmm I disagree fundamentally with the principle that just because your parents are middle class and/or have money, you do not have discipline issues. This is absolutely not the case. My DC attended a school in a very disadvantaged area, a school in a very leafy MC area and a top league private school and the ONLY DIFFERENCE in behaviour was the way it was dealt with by the school. There were children with behavioural issues in all of them.

The first school was frankly appalling at dealing with these issues and we did have or hear of children badly hurt and injured every day. The second was much better but we still had incidents especially at playtime where supervision was absolutely minimal. In fact I thought that 300 children left running riot in a playground with 1 or 2 dinner ladies normally chatting among themselves was incredibly irresponsible and the children did very well at not getting even more injuries!

The private, academically selective school my DD1 attends has more behavioural issues than the second school but has incredibly strict discipline and playtimes are closely supervised, small separate playgrounds with lots of teachers and also lots of clubs so the children are always busy and less likely to hurt one another. There is still disruption in lessons though and behaviour can be bad at times, despite many of these children being incredibly privileged and many being also very bright.

I felt the need to write this post because it really gets on my nerves when I hear that just because a school is middle class the children are well behaved, this is utter rubbish in my experience. Also I've had plenty of children round to play ranging from council estates to posh mansions, and all their behaviour varies massively and bore no relation whatsoever to the professional or financial status of the parent. You'd be surprised how many very wealthy children can behave like the savage you describe, I could write a book about it!!!!

[FiscalCliffRocksThisTown]

Sovery, so true!

[DraggingDownDownDown]

TiggyTape - This was their policy:

The oversubscription criteria will then be applied to each band as follows:

1. Statement of Special Educational Needs - Places will be allocated to children with a statement of special
   

educational needs where the Academy is named on the statement as appropriate provision.

1. Looked After Children – children in public care (looked after children) and previously looked after children.
   

(See Appendix 1 for the full definition).

1. Sibling link – children who will have an older sibling attending the Academy at the time of admission in years
   

7 to 13 or had a sibling in year 13 on National Secondary Allocation Day. (See Appendix 1 for the full
definition).

1. Other pupils.
   

so we are no.4 - other pupils

Couldnt see priority medical and social criteria for unstatemented children

[DraggingDownDownDown]

It then goes onto say:

Place Allocation and Under Subscribed Bands
Places in each of the bands will be allocated according to the over subscription criteria starting from Band 1.

If there are bands that are under subscribed, places will be filled from over- subscribed bands.

The process will be:

1. The places will be filled starting with Band 1 and then each Band in turn down to Band 5.
   

1. Students in the nearest adjacent band, or bands will be allocated a place in priority order according to the
   

over subscription criteria. I.e. The student who is highest in order of all the criteria will be selected using the
final tiebreaker of distance as described above until the nearest band/bands runs out of students.

1. Any remaining places will then be filled from the next adjacent band, or bands, in the same manner.
   

1. This will be repeated until all bands are full.
   

I interpreted this to mean that they will take all from band 1 first

[Clavinova]

How will fair banding achieve a mixed intake in an unpopular, under subscribed school? You can't force parents to send their dc to sit a fair banding test for a school they don't want.

[DraggingDownDownDown]

TiggyTape - that does make alot more sense! I have already started my appeal letter even though I don't find out till tomorrow but I like to get my thoughts in order.

I have put in it things like - the school is all based round a circle and so if my son gets lost (likely due to his SN) he just has to keep walking till he finds the correct room. The other school has separate buildings.

Can walk to this one as it is so close (with friends) but the other schools are 1 or 2 bus journeys away which he is no way capable of.

The fact that the things that they have to help the SEN children is identical to what the primary have already implemented (alphasmart, timeout cards etc) which the other school don't do.

And a big factor is that he actually WANTS to go there which is half the battle with an ASD child who hates change and suffers with anxiety. He is already used to the school as our primary has alot of event days there.

[Blu]

Clavinova: because parents of high ability kids can be reassured that there will be a fair representation of similar ability kids, perhaps? And to begin with the option of a fair banded but unpopular comp presents a good alternative to people who are less happy with their immediately local options, so apply.

I have been thinking about all this in the context that in London children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds do better than disadvantaged children from other areas. And this accounts for the success of many of the London comps which have high FSM %.

In most of London housing within a catchment will be very mixed, with multi-million pound conservation areas metres away from high density estates. For families using the state system, children have been mixed from nursery. You just don't get the discrepancy between 'leafy' comps and sink schools that posters from many other parts of the country report.

This of us in London bash our heads against our keyboards as yet another poster says comps only work because of leafiness, and they bash their heads as we explain that our high performing comps are not leafy and tell us we must have bought our way in, while actually, far from it, some of us might live in council estates!

The sheer concentration and mix of housing in London ensures that there is always a huge social mix.

Prizegiving eve at ds's comp demonstrates exactly that both ability and achievement are not determined or boundaries by class or economic circumstances. And the stats show that achievement overall is high.

Correlation is not causation, but it seems reasonable to look at the model of social mix that occurs in London schools before wedding ourselves to any system that further polarises children by class and economy.

The popular and successful comps I know of in our area that do well by all levels of ability, do well across all social groups, and are popular with mc and /or aspirational parents do tend to use fair banding.

[DraggingDownDownDown]

Many thanks - I am sure our school will help. Even though he has not got a statement they have implemented some things recently that will last him for the rest of primary at their own expense

[morethanpotatoprints]

What does sobriquet mean? Oh, and how do you pronounce it. It must be a posh comp to use words like this.
OP, please write for all to understand instead of using posh words. How can we comment if we don't understand?

[DraggingDownDownDown]

Tiggytape - just to clarify. ..

Child A is in band 1
Child B is in band 5
No siblings but B lives slightly further from the school.

However band 1 has lots of sibling links. Band 5 has none. Does that mean the band 5 child is more likely to get a place?