'Pick the right school for your child'

[AmberTheCat]

There's something about this phrase that bothers me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Can anyone help me unpack it?

I think it makes me uneasy for a number of reasons, including:

• Most people aren't really in a position to make a choice. They can express a preference, but that's not the same thing, as we all know.

• It implies that it's a good thing for 'similar' children (whether that's similar in temperament, background, aptitude, faith or whatever) to be brought together and, by definition, for 'dissimilar' children to be kept separate. I find that worrying in terms of encouraging children to understand and accept people who are different from them.

• I wonder if it rather lets schools off the hook? Shouldn't they be able to educate and nurture all children, not just ones that suit their ethos? And going back to my first point, what happens to children at schools which don't suit them, but whose parents have no choice but to send them there anyway?

Musings welcome!

I think I agree with you.

I recently heard a mum talking about a primary school that her DC had been moved from. One of her comments was "well the school is very musical so if your DC aren't in particular it's hard to get on", amongst other things. State school certainly school be inclusive regardless of aptitude or preference for certain activities IMO. Very few places is their an actual choice of school, unless of course, you are paying.

There are increasingly fewer areas where there is actually a choice unless you have the financial means to buy it.

The area I'm in is facing its first year of a deficit of secondary school places (according to a report produced in 2013). Looking at planning reports, over the next 6 years the best the LEA can hope for is a surplus of 5% (which is unlikely to be in place before 2016) and I am pretty sure that the flow of people moving into the area will exceed this given the number of one and two bedroom flats being build on the doorstep of a number of schools.

Given that all my local schools are now academies and they are quite happy to manipulate their intake to ensure the best results in the league tables (greatly helped by the 11 plus), the situation is only likely to get worse. Unfortunately, due to the academy status, my local schools can not be forced to change their admissions criteria or intake.

I thought they had to band the kids then randomly select to ensure an even spread of ability?
I hate this - I feel like I am back at school and have missed all the lessons on how to pick a secondary school and now everyone is whispering about the secret way to do it.

I've only seen/heard that phrase used in terms of "Don't slavishly follow the league tables" rather than "Avoid dissimilar people"

Slightly off the point - I do agree, OP, that children benefit from being educated together - but I also think it can be slightly disingenuous, given that, in our city at least, it's, in effect, the schools that choose. Our nearest school randomly selects (by band) across the whole city and is massively, massively oversubscribed. Next furthest is C of E and doesn't recognise our church as Christian, so we are highly unlikely to get in. There is also a superselective, which takes fewer than one in seven applicants. We might get into the Jewish school, but it is heavily oversubscribed. And there is the failing school in special measures....

I hear what you're saying but the answer to that would be to have all schools the same, the way that Tesco in Eastbourne is the same as the one in Edinburgh. Even if central government could write a set of rules the way that Tesco Head Office does to ensure all stores are the same, you couldn't possibly make all schools the same.This is because people who work at and attend the school make it more than a building for educational purposes.

I agree that choice is illusory for most .

I think in theory it would be nice if schools catered for all. But to be all things to all men is extraordinarily expensive and resource heavy. Usually a bit of a pipe dream.

I personally have prefred to source schools that I know will cater for my DC .

I have never even heard of this. In Scotland we don't have the same problems re schools I gather from here that you do and everyone pretty much just goes to the catchment school for their areas - no applying or preferences or appeals so you don't pick your school, you just go to the local one.

For me, picking the right school for my child is putting them in distance order on the list.
I truly believe that a child who wants to do well (whatever doing well is for that individual is) anywhere and a child who doesn't won't.

Annecdotally we went to a sink school, bottom of the league tables for our area. Of my close friends 1 got a 1st from Oxford, several others went to university, I was a bit lazy got a clutch of Bs and Cs and did nursery nurse training. 1 works in Tesco, 1 is a barmaid and 1 wonders the city centre smoking things he shouldn't.
Its not the schools that determine children's futures it is the children's own ambition.

Apparently my sink school didn't teach me to spell though. Wanders, not wonders.

We are lucky, we had a choice of 2 very good secondaries.

We did pick the school that we thought was 'right for our child'.

It wasn't about the type of child who went there, it was about whether the school's strengths were the ones that we thought were key for us and our daughter.

I think she would have been fine at the other school, but maybe a bit more stressed, and a bit less happy.

Mind you I am amazed at the number of parents who chose between these schools using one of the following methods

• I went there 25 years ago so my child is/isn't going there now.
• Child wants to go to X so we're going with that (without having even looked at Y).

Shouldn't they be able to educate and nurture all children, not just ones that suit their ethos?

It would be nice if all schools were equally good at everything but life isn't like that. Some will be particularly strong at music, others will be comparatively weak. So the one that is weak at music will still be able to educate and nurture those pupils who are not musically talented, but those pupils will still be better off at the other school.

manipulate their intake to ensure the best results in the league tables (greatly helped by the 11 plus)

If they were selective schools before becoming academies they were already "manipulating their intake". If they were not selective they are not allowed to be selective now. They can use fair banding but there is no way of using that to manipulate their intake in the way described. Far from it. Fair banding guarantees that a proportion of the intake will be low achievers academically.

I truly believe that a child who wants to do well (whatever doing well is for that individual is) anywhere and a child who doesn't won't.
^
A good school should make all children want to do well, that's what you need to look for and if you're not fortunate enough to have any choice you need to make damn sure you inculcate that desire to succeed into your children or they could miss so many potential life chances.

It implies that you're a shit parent if you don't.

Given that most people don't have ££££ to move into a good catchment or go private it is a silly thing to say.

Not all Tescos are the same! Even not all Tescos Extra are the same.

"Pick the right school for your child" is usually used to mean: the nice mc school, which everyone fights to get into, might not be the right school for your child.

For most children, most schools (at least primary) will be ok.
For some they won't. They maybe too wriggley. They may be G and T. They may have SEN. They may have a passion for: Chess, Dance, Climbing, hockey, Music etc.

But then I did have a choice. A couple of local schools I could have probably got my DC into. Further school which being more rural, I could probably have got my DC into. And the fact that I choose where to live based on schools. I was lucky to get my prefered school for secondary (even then I could have choosen other schools and got in, some are "undesirable" and some I didn't want as much as the local catchment one, but I was lucky and got my preferred out of catchment.)

I have known students travel a long way to get a preferable school, because their parents really did look around and decided a long, awkward commute was best for their child.

I dislike it too. I don't, at age 10 or 11, feel that a child should be deemed appropriate for any particular type of education. I want my daughters well educated - with a broad, liberal education, the option of at least two languages to GCSE, triple science, and so on. Yes, I have one child who benefits from decent music provision (but frankly any school should be providing this) and one who doesn't; and sports don't madly fry my onion but I suppose it's a good thing if they're not totally neglected. But overall, what I want is good teaching and a good school, which will make it possible for my child - and all the other kids there - to develop in the directions that she wants and needs to.

So I sent them to the local comp.

Umm I did have a choice when my eldest was going to start school in 2 years or so, of moving. Where (within my town) I moved to was influenced very strongly by the schools. There were two very very popular schools, the kind government ministers at the time talked to to see how they got such great results. I liked the attitude of one and not the other, so that decided where I lived. I have friends who made the opposite choice - I'm sure that was right for them.

But mother you chose a school that is deemed inappropriate for half the population

Yep, take your point . But for me, it's not important to have a school that's particularly tailored to my child's temperament and interests. Certainly not at 10, given how much kids change in the next few years.

(I do love my kids, btw, and am very interested in them. I am not as callous as that post rather makes me look.)

I think a single sex education is a very Tailor made education

Not all parents have a choice - there is only one child their child will get in to.
Of those that have a choice, one option may be really rubbish, so not a real choice there either.

But we did have a realistic choice between good options. Nothing really 'wrong' with either of them. But they have a different feel, and emphasise different things. So we chose the one we thought was best for our child.

Similarly we have 3 primaries we could choose between. We chose the one we thought would fit our DD best. Maybe not so good educationally, but we considered it to be more nurturing than the others, and more accepting of differences.

In an ideal world, all schools would be good academically, and for music, sport, pastoral care etc. But until that is the case, being able to state a preference at least lets some parents chose a school of 'best fit'.

I was reading a paper by John Hattie earlier that talks about the fact that the differences between outcomes within schools are, on the whole, much greater than the differences between schools - because so much comes down to individual teachers. I guess you could argue that schools can attract or develop like-minded teachers, but I thought it was an interesting stat nevertheless.

Surely it's only relevant if you have a choice? In the private sector one school can have a very different ethos to another.

prh47bridge If they were selective schools before becoming academies they were already "manipulating their intake". If they were not selective they are not allowed to be selective now. I'm not disputing whether they were already manipulating the intake. However, as they now have academy status they can not be forced to expand whether they have the ability to do so or not. What's more they can't be forced to change their catchments to prioritise local children. Perhaps this is the case with all schools whether they are academies or not?