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.

[midnightmoomoo]

This thread has been really interesting to read because it's actually about a school/area I know!! I have a few friends in Chandler's Ford and one who teaches at Thornden.......yes, they get good results but it's not just the three legged stool, you forgot to mention the high numbers of children who have tutors as well! (another advantage of being a well-off parent). One friend who has only been in CF for a year or so (and who has struggled to fit in because they 'only' have an £50K income, said she'd never change and they would just carry on living the way they always have....within months she was sending her eldest son for tests to explain why he was 'struggling' in school and then began the process of looking for a tutor for him because all his friends had one (this was in year 5). Didn't mean she wanted the best for her child for the right reason though, it was bowing to the pressure to be like all the other parents and 'fitting in'. I like CF as an area, yes it's very leafy, but I find it very stifling to be in and as I drive home I find myself relaxing because the pressure to keep up with the Jones's is so relentless. I totally agree that for a child to benefit from the school they attend it should be a joint effort between parents and teachers, I always think of it as a conversation that needs to flow....but this can happen regardless of income or class.

[Tansie]

It so, so, doesn't have to be 'fit in with the Joneses'! CF is actually not a complete mono-culture. Th. has a lot of DC who are not from WASP backgrounds; lots of Asian/Chinese/Swedish(!) docs, pharmacists, IT people, sales managers etc etc send DC to Th. The neighbours around me include a (former) north African refugee and his family, a large extended professional Indian family, childless London flee-ers and ordinary, every-day what I'd call 'lower MC families' like us, e.g. mum a teacher, dad a cop - and I'd say just about all of my friends have joint incomes of no more than £60k PA. And regarding tutors- I don't know, personally, of a single DC who is in Th who has a tutor. Of course they may exist, but not in my orbit. DS2, my 'less clever' DS, went to Kip McGrath, in Y6 for a year to do English. He got a '4' in his KS2 SAT which is exactly what we were hoping for. In a class of 30, 2 other DC were also being tutored, apparently. Look at the local newspapers. There's about 3 ads for tutors which include Kip and Kumon (I think), i.e. national franchises. Surely an area bristling with tutors would have more tutors on offer?

Th really, really isn't a 'hot house'. I'd say the upper sets at Kings, Winchester, were far more likely to be, but the thing is, Th doesn't really 'set' at all, especially lower down the school. Their ethos is 'informal but focused'.

Your mate needs to take a good look at her motivators if being able to say 'Oh yes, we tutor' in order to 'keep up' is seen as desirable. Did she find 'a reason' for her DC failing to fit in? Knowing that would be useful- might transpire there are other things going on, but the parents are just interpreting this as being a social class divide?

I said I was backing off but I just can't 'elp meself!

[midnightmoomoo]

A lot of tutoring is done through word of mouth, not necessarily through big agencies. I think my friend wanted to be able to say that her son had something 'wrong' with him (eg dyslexia) so that somehow it was more acceptable than that he just wasn't as bright as some of the others, but this pressure didn't exist until she moved to CF, she wasn't worried about it until she lived in that kind of parent-peer-pressure environment, if that makes sense.

I understand your reasoning for maintaining admissions as they are, but I still find it frustrating that the system has created these housing bubbles around the 'better' schools.....fair play, if you can afford to buy in a more expensive area for a good school then that's your choice, but why should you have to?? Where I live, if you picked my house up and moved it half a mile into the catchment for the favoured secondary school (favoured, not best, it doesn't get the best results round here but is in the more 'MC' area and so has the snob-appeal......) it would increase in value by around £100K.........in the same flippin' post code!!!!

[AgaPanthers]

Lady up the road from me has a very thriving tutoring business. She certainly doesn't advertise, she's a retired teacher and it's all word of mouth.

[WooWooOwl]

Cory, you seem to be taking this far to personally.

It's a fact that children on FSMs, the most widely used indicator of disadvantage, are are statistically less likely to achieve well academically.

There is a reason for that, and it isn't only about money.

No one is making judgments against individual families or children.

[TheBuskersDog]

Tansie, your £50K wouldn't buy you a 3 bedroom house in the catchment area of the most desired school in some cities, would you like those parents who can afford to buy there to consider your children unsuitable classmates for their children?

[Tansie]

pimms - but it then becomes he said/she said if suddenly it's a supposedly hidden tutoring economy going on.

"....fair play, if you can afford to buy in a more expensive area for a good school then that's your choice, but why should you have to??" - because life isn't fair and never will be. In the Anglo-Saxon 'model', where advantage can be sought- it will be. I didn't have to move into a good catchment, I chose to so as to do everything I could to try and ensure my DC get a good education reasonably undisturbed by the products of slack or non-existent parenting, where my DC are surrounded by the DC of like minded parents.

As for 'unsuitable classmates'- guess what? There exists a vast swathe of UK education that does consider my DC to be unfit by your definition of unfit. The vast majority of private and public schools, for a start, and any that has a rigorous academic selection process, or any with a strong religious affiliation.

My DC wouldn't get into any of them- BUT the difference is that I am not shrieking 'Unfair!' about it, as it's just the way things are, just doing what I can to level a skewed playing field for my DC as far as I am able- just like others could if they were prepared to go the distance, or hadn't made Life Choices that preclude them from any choice..

It should also be noted that many of us here with our 'up to £60k joint incomes' are on our third houses, we're not first-time buyers. We're at least in our very late 30s, and in my early 50s in my case.

[gerrit]

I live in Chandler's Ford and I don't see a culture of tutoring amongst the many children I know. I do know of children living in Southampton/outside Thornden catchment/.. who are being tutored in year 5 onwards for KES but most people living around us in Thornden catchment don't apply for KES. I also find it pretty hard to believe that people feel out of place for 'only' having a 50k income and I don't see much keeping up with the Jones'.

Houses in Thornden are more expensive than similar houses just out of catchment. If the admission rules suddenly changed, I think it is understandable that people who paid a premium to buy a house in catchment would be upset- not only would their children potentially have a long journey each day rather than walking to their neighbourhood school but also their house prices could potentially fall by 25k or more. This thread makes it sound like people in Thornden catchment are all wealthy, competitive and intolerant of others. I think they are just parents who are trying to do the best they can for their children. I don't agree with the attitudes of the OP and neither do most of my friends or neighbours.

[AmberTheCat]

just doing what I can to level a skewed playing field for my DC as far as I am able- just like others could if they were prepared to go the distance, or hadn't made Life Choices that preclude them from any choice..

You argue it's levelling a skewed playing field. Others might see it as further skewing the playing field.

Do you really think anyone could afford to move into an expensive catchment area if only they'd made the right 'life choices'? I'm not denying that making good choices, working hard, etc. is important if you want to get on in life, but it's blinkered in the extreme to ignore the influence of people's backgrounds on their capacity to make the sort of choices that you're talking about.

And, yet again, I would come back to my question about why children should, effectively, be punished for their parents' choices.

[WooWooOwl]

Obviously children shouldn't be punished for the choices of their parents, but there isn't really any reason to think that anyone is being punished.

Going to the school that your family has access too or that your family choose for you is not punishment.

[Tansie]

One of the first lessons we teach our DC is that 'actions have consequences'. As such, the harsh, blunt and, evidently to many on here- unacceptable reality of some parental choices is DC who don't have access to what the parents would perhaps wish for their DC. They, understandably, want what they see other parents as having, but without the hassle associated with doing what's necessary to exercise that choice, thanks.

Oddly, there's no such complaint as to why the DC of wealthy parents, howsoever their wealth has been gained, are allowed to enormously benefit from their parents' good fortune; but when the shoe's on the other foot, oh no! Those parents have every right under the sun, but apparently without responsibility to demand a 'good education', whilst completely overlooking that, as I have banged on about endlessly, a successful school outcome comes about because, among other things, the parents are on board. This might come in the form of paid-for or in-house tutoring, relocation to a 'better' catchment; attempts at scholarships to privates.

The playing field is skewed, I seek to balance it as far as I can in order to help my DC. I could equally have said 'Because I recognise that, being LIFE, all is not equal, but I have sought to push my DC up as far as I can, barring private, grammar, religious schools etc to give them a fighting chance against those 'chosen''.

And amber, why seek 'better' for any DC if they're always going to be potentially hampered by the influence of their social background? Because I don't believe that's the case. You only need to see the number of people in our catchment who are definitely here for historical, family reasons, for having always lived in the area, for not wanting to move away from mum and dad (see and earlier posting of mine for more detail)- very, very few. The vast majority of us are here because we're researched a good school and done what was necessary to get our DC in. Again, as I've already detailed, DC of former refugees.

Finally, gerrit- interesting that you agree with me that CF isn't a hotbed of tutoring and we aren't keeping up with any Joneses. But yet 'I don't agree with the OP'. Why? Do you have DC in local schools at all, ooi?

[midnightmoomoo]

The only thing I would add is that you seem to not understand that for some people, living in your particular catchment would never be an option financially even if they are totally committed to supporting their child and wanting them to have the opportunities Thornden would offer them. This, to me, is where the catch-22 of the system kicks in.....people who can afford (not want, because wanting it and being able to afford it are not always the same thing) to live in the catchment of a good school will do so and if generally these people are well educated themselves and supportive of their own children, expecting them to do well in turn, then the school will continue to be good/improve....so more people want to send their children there which continues the cycle of demand impacting house prices, which results in excluding more people who simply can't afford to buy in catchment.

Totally agree with your comment about parents being on board being essential, but I hope you realise that this isn't just a leafy, middle class trait, plenty of people who don't fit your ideal are just as supportive of their children and their children's school, but just don't have the means to live in the bubble of certain catchment areas.

[Tansie]

pimms- of course parents other than being well off enough to be able to afford, say £600pcm for a 2 bedroom flat in this catchment will or may want 'the best' for their DC.

BUT... because as with all of life's 'better' things, just because it can't be available to all, should we allow it to be denied to all? Which could well be the outcome of a lottery, always assuming a 'good school' is, as detailed by myself earlier, not just a bunch of buildings, but a governorship, a headship, teaching staff, parents, pupils- will remain a good school once you mess with the constituent parts?

IF, if a school was an inanimate, immutable object, as in 'this is a good school' regardless of governorship, headship, teaching staff, parents, pupils then yes, of course lotteries etc etc would ensure an even mix of patronage but you'd also have to accept the obvious corollary, the existence of 'very poor schools' that you'd be equally happy to embrace if that's the way the dice rolled for your DC... but back here in the real world...

[Blu]

Tansie, are you saying that if parents can't afford to live in an expensive catchment that is their fault for not looking at the consequences of being poor? For not taking responsibility for getting a better paid job etc? And that they should therefore suck up living in the catchment of an under performing school and not expect access to a school full of the children of wealthier parents?

[gerrit]

I wrote that I don't agree with the attitudes of the OP. I don't have children in local schools (although I know many children in local schools) and I didn't move to CF for Thornden.

I appreciate that many people couldn't afford to live in this catchment but at the same time houses are not that highly priced relative to surrounding areas - quite a lot of people have chosen to live a couple of miles down the road in houses which are slightly cheaper or slightly bigger for the same money, but whose catchment schools are not particularly good (consistently poor Ofsted reports, recurrent issues with staff and management turnover, rather low "added value" and so on). There are a lot of houses in CF just outside Thornden catchment which aren't particularly cheaper than those inside catchment (20k as a fraction of 400k isn't that large, for example), but their catchment secondary schools are not very good. Had these people bought similar price houses nearby (Thornden catchment CF or nearer Romsey or nearer Winchester or...) they would have been in catchments for good schools.

[WooWooOwl]

The less desirable school probably doesn't need to borrow the head of science from the desirable school, it's likely that they have a perfectly good head of science already.

The problem rarely lies with the teachers in these schools that some parents try to avoid.

And looking at the schools round here, it's the less desirable schools that have far superior sports facilities because they have lots of pupil premium money to spend and can therefore free up money to update sports equipment. It's the schools with low numbers of FSMs that are in desperate need of a facilities upgrade.

What would be the intended purpose of making all schools exactly representative of the community they serve?

There are comps that are representative of the community they serve already, they would still be considered largely MC and 'leafy'. So how far do you take it? Do you bus in more students entitled to FSMs just for the sake of it, even if the school is already catering well for the students that live in it's surrounding area?

I don't really get this obsession with socio economic diversity and why it is supposed to be better for all students.

[AmberTheCat]

I think socioeconomic diversity is important, in this context, for two main reasons. Firstly because it encourages equal provision for both more and less advantaged groups. With any system if people are able to game it, the people who already have the odds stacked in their favour will be better placed to skew things even more in their favour. Secondly because it encourages tolerance and understanding. Just as segregating children by faith can lead to mistrust and hostility between different religions, effectively segregating children by socioeconomic status can lead to a potentially damaging misunderstanding about people who aren't 'like you'.

[Tansie]

My DC's school is classified Leading Edge Do I get a tick for that?

I'm sorry, but in the 'utopia' you describe, I don't quite get how you want schools to 'reflect their local communities' unless those communities are more well-off in which case you want those schools to throw open their doors to all-comers from miles away. You seem to regard good schools in MC areas to be not allowable. Why? Why the dual standard?

For the record, like I said earlier, in the same way as my family background (i.e. the diligence of my parents, the economic, educational and social factors that lead them to where they were when I was of school age, planned and unavoidable) lead me to the school-life I had, one that didn't allow for private education or The Best Comps (in fact, an 'off-day' could have seen me in a dire SM!). Was I a 'victim' of this? As a society we happily allow the DC of the lucky and wealthy to enjoy the fruits of their parents' success, yet when the shoe's on the other foot, society must step in an gerrymander things like school intakes etc etc to 'overcome' this. Should we pluck the DC from poorer parents away from them in case their upbringing reflects their family's circumstance?

I am all for endless (failed) strategies put in place to try and improve the lot of the poor- but I don't see potentially destroying my own DC's good school on that political bonfire to be the answer.

And yes, oddly enough, London conditions do not in any way represent how the rest of the country is.

I also at the no-doubt nobly intended 'ideal' that we should all mix happily together, presumably singing the CocaCola song as well as we all join hands in harmony. There is this idea that the only way you can possibly have a handle on the lifestyles of 'others' is to have them in your face 24/7. I actually believe you'd find quite a lot of opposition from some 'local communities' if you engineered school entry in some areas. Not all racial, religious and social groups actually want to mix it up. (And note the government is doing nothing to force these sacred segregations back together. Faith schools, any one? Grammars?!)

I am fully aware that there are some out there who for whatever reason are socially painted into a corner and who therefore couldn't afford the say private rent of £600 pcm needed to get a 2 bedroom flat in our catchment; I cannot afford a house in the catchment of The London Oratory (nor am I Catholic), or, for that matter, Westgate School in Winchester!- but I can't see how bussing the DC of the 'bit less well off' down to the dangerously feckless into our school will magically improve the educational outcome of all DC but is in fact very likely to drag the standards of the other DC down, thus rendering 'a good school' to being 'an average school'.


As for choosing schools due to tennis courts and swimming pools...um- No. I chose my DSs school due to the fact that the vast majority of its intake come from backgrounds, quite diverse ones ethnically, actually, who value education and who send DC to school ready to learn, to a school that takes this intake and via strong leadership, discipline and high Value Adding, ejects them with good GCSEs.

The short-hand for this is 'MC-valued'.

Where else in life do we attempt to 'socially engineer' like this? At work, my boss gets paid more than me because he's prepared to take on more responsibility than me, works longer hours and often will have higher qualifications than me. When I go shopping I go to Asda because Waitrose's prices are too high for me. I holiday in a hotel on the Med rather than a private villa on St Lucia. Should these things be down to lottery as well?

[Tansie]

Out of interest this MN thread which some of you are on maybe tells one about the pitfalls of 'fair-banding'! (Pg 2 and 3 if that's how you organise your MN is where the discussion 'heats up').

[AgaPanthers]

"Out of interest this MN thread which some of you are on maybe tells one about the pitfalls of 'fair-banding'! (Pg 2 and 3 if that's how you organise your MN is where the discussion 'heats up')."

Well the major pitfall there is that the fair banding is secondary to religious selection, which really makes a mockery of fair banding in the first place.

[Tansie]

Well, we're going to just have to disagree, I guess, tiggy.

I'd say the 'reward' I get for my MC-values is having then exercising the choice of which school my DC go to. And frankly, til I see the reward/punishment model being applied to all DC, very much including the 'reward' of a top public school education available to the innocent, powerless DC of the high earners, I shan't be lining up to rescind what little 'push power' I have.

As for "The higher pay your boss gets is his or her reward for taking on more work and more responsibility."- but what if I'm not capable of that higher responsibility? Should I be punished by not being allowed to be the boss, then?

"The holiday you can afford is your reward for the work you do and for planning your money carefully." But what if I don't earn enough to go to St Lucia with the best financial planning in the world?

I could say that the choices I have exercised in my DC's schooling is a result of careful financial planning, actually! People can be remarkably helpless about what they can achieve in life, given a bit of commitment and delayed gratification. My catchment is leafy but that of adjoining equally good schools have far higher rates of social housing and FSM (the excellent Kings in Winchester encompasses all of the Stanmore council estate, for instance). We only need to see how many are absolutely out of their depth in debt following 2007-8 to see how many people spent (borrowed money) like it grew on trees, like kids in a sweetshop.

Yes, I guess there is a 3 tier system. Just like in Real Life. I wish I could be in tier 1 to give me ultimate choices in life in general, but I'm in tier 2; however I don't expect those in tier 1 to rescind their 'advantage' (though I wish more of it were honestly gained, and that some private schools weren't allowed to flout Charity laws, but that's another story) in order to directly benefit me, inasmuch as I recognise that many (but not all) of the glittering schools that high earners patronise would actually be less glittering if they had to deal with DC from less engaged backgrounds. Cue my anecdote about the boy in the Australian school.

I mentioned earlier that I'd have no problem with being interviewed along with my DC to gain entry to such a school as ours (and also said that many of the DC of high earners might fail that interview as they've summarily out-sourced their DC's childhoods and education!). Such a system would allow the DC of poorer yet committed and engaged families in, wouldn't it? And yes, keep the DC of the unengaged out, for better or for worse. But imagine policing that interview process and how that would be exploited! I mean, we can't even make 11+ exams tutor proof!

Sure, I recognise that the DC of the unengaged need educating- I too regard 'education as a right' in a developed 1st world country, but I can't see how diluting 'good' schools with DC who are liable to be considerably less 'school focused' and engagable will help any one. Endless schemes, local and national have been wheeled out to try to help such DC but they come to naught, by and large, because those DC's problems can't be sorted with the few in-school hours available, where teachers haven't got time to teach, they're too busy social working and fire-fighting..

I agree entirely that it's very unfortunate that being less well off, if not actually poor will lump you in with the poor-and-unengaged, because though I loathed the woman, one thing Thatcher noted was that it was the 'working class' who have to live alongside the 'underclass' who suffered. But I still don't see how bussing the latter group around a county to school in the interests of some PC idealism will do anything other than make all state school suffer.

Final point: funny old thing but my DS's school wouldn't suit everyone. Some DC would thrive with far more 'input' than Th allows. There's no 'personal development days' for pupils, no 'meet your DC's form tutor' at all; it's huge (1450 DC); setting is minimal; quite a lot of their work is peer-marked; there's quite a lot of cover-teaching, presumably as the actual teacher is doing Leading Edge work; sport is limited to the already committed as is music, by and large; the DC are very much expected to manage their own day, school trips, homework etc (very little is set on-line; they got 'Frog' a year or 2 ago!); getting to talk to an actual teacher can be quite difficult; there's no 'house' or formal pastoral system; the uniform is a daggy polo'n'sweatshirt; the school facilities are quite rundown (bar the lottery-funded performance hall following a fire years ago); and yes, the push is towards 'Buy choice in your future by getting as good a GCSE grade as possible now'. We, the parents, are expected to provided the wider cultural hinterland, the values'n'morals teaching, the cultural extra-curricular. But the school produces the highest GCSE results, Eng Bacc results, 5 good GCSEs inc Eng Maths and VA score among state secondaries in the county. If you were a poor parent from a far distant council estate, used to SureStart, home/school visits, TAs at every turn, free school trips here, there and everywhere, enrichment programmes, open-door policies at school, endless initiatives to promote engagement with your DC's educational 'journey'- I think you'd hate Th. You might even disengage with it....

[WooWooOwl]

Secondly because it encourages tolerance and understanding.

Tolerance of what?

If the children from dysfunctional and disengaged families are bright and want to do well, then there is nothing to tolerate. If, on the other hand, their lack of family support leads to negative and disruptive behaviour and attitudes to education, then tbh, I don't want my children to learn to tolerate that.

It will not make my children better people to be given the view that it's acceptable to be disruptive and we should be 'understanding' of that. It will do nothing to improve their education or outcomes if I tell them they have to try and work as hard as they in the already difficult years of adolescence at the same time as being tolerant of their lessons being disrupted.

So I really don't see how it benefits children to learn to be tolerant and understanding to their own detriment. I send my children to school to learn about stuff that they can't learn at home, not to shape their views on other groups of people in society. I can teach them to be understanding myself without having to have their lessons disrupted.

We don't expect adults to be around people that make their lives significantly more difficult at work, so why do people think it's a good thing to force that upon our children?