A thread to discuss state selective education.

[Hakluyt]

I am conscious that this debate is clogging up other threads in ways which are not helpful and must be annoying for those threads' authors. I tried to channel the debate to a separate thread yesterday, but got it badly wrong. I hope this will work better, and will be allowed to stay.

The catchment unfairness is widespread and a huge problem.Sutton et al worry far more about it than a few piffling grammar places but you choose to ignore that on every single thread.

Cecily exactly however to live nearer ie a few streets down the city you need an extra £200k.She's not gnashing her teeth over it but simply planning to put them in for the 11+. < shrugs> You make the best of what you've got which in this case is their brains and not money.

Well, the Applications Data for my area has just been subject to an FOI request.
410 empty places in my local school, 209 in its twin
the other local schools are over subscribed

I live nearly a mile outside the catchment of the school my kids have attended and over 4 miles from the school itself.

The other day I saw a Kings Winchester bus dropping off 12 miles outside the catchment boundary

If London Boroughs cannot be persuaded by electors to ensure there are enough school places, vote the council out, do not blame comprehensive schools.

My nearest Grammar school is 25 miles away - and no better than the top sets at the comps

I donmt choose to ignore it. I just don't see why it's relevant to a thread about state selective education. Yes it's wrong and not how th system should work. And we should be working to find a solution. I think I fwvour a lottery system, personally.

But th presence of one unfairness doesn't negate another one- and state selection is unfair and the unfairness is intrinsic. Not a sign of something going wrong, but of something going right.

It's not London and there are plenty of places,just not in the school of choice.

With grammars being no better than top sets in grammars then it really is a non issue where they go.

But it is state selection,it's selection by money so everything to do with a thread on selective education.

LePetit
I live in the wrong catchment. My house in the right catchment would cost me double.
But I got both my kids into the school I wanted on standard comprehensive applications.
As do hundreds of other families - which is why the local school is so empty.

If there are not enough school places, blame the politicians who stop LEAs opening new schools where they are needed
do not blame the schools themselves.

Nobody is blaming the school.It's life.

Think it's been mentioned before that your experience doesn't speak for everybody's and many places are very different.

"But it is state selection,it's selection by money so everything to do with a thread on selective education."

OK- but the point you at failing to acknowledge is that that is not how it is supposed to work. Something should certainly be done about it. I suggested a lottery system- what's your solution?

Hak
I'm against lottery systems because they have a huge carbon footprint.

Far, far simpler is to abolish selection by parental religion or any sort of academic test
and then to set all admissions to the standard admission criteria.

Linked to freeing LEAs to plan strategically and provide enough places - and penalise areas like Kingston which refuse to.

Thank you Gordon Brown for forcing LEAs to sell off school buildings in the early 90's rather than holding them empty ready for the next population surge - but then he never did GET mending the roof while the sun was shining.

Yes, a very few people will "game" by buying houses, but with current prices their numbers will be small

and kids are only at a particular school for a few years so there will be flow in the catchment boundaries.

I do NOT believe in the American no choice approach, but I do believe all schools should have the same entry criteria.

I have to say I would love to know how big a problem the selection by wealth thing is- I have no personal experience of IT except in relation to one ting primary school- where once SEN and siblings were taken into account there were only about 10 places left. And there was a hike in house prices in the same road. But I haven't experienced, except anecdotally on Mumsnet, the same situation with 200 + places at a secondary school.

I do agree about the carbon footprint. But if selection by wealth is a problem,something needs to be done about it. And I can't think of another solution.......

Hak I'm against lottery systems because they have a huge carbon footprint.
BUt you are driving past your local school to one further away, although I guess that if nobody could do that, intakes would be more representative and therefore you would not feel a need to drive past your local school.

I do NOT believe in the American no choice approach, but I do believe all schools should have the same entry criteria
I would like to see no choice you just send your child to the nearest school.

Hak
Selection by wealth is real, but 95% snobbery.

An easy one to show it is around the Thornden Catchment - houses that feed to Crestwood or Toynbee are £100k less than those that feed to Thornden - for the same design house in the same road
BUT
The prices have now risen so much that people cannot move on, so the catchment boundary is flexing
AND
The upper sets at the other two schools seem to settle into Symonds just fine

I'm quite open about the fact that I could not afford to move across the boundary - but luckily slotted into a system that involved 25% out of catchment places.

Philo
Trust me, I'd love to save the petrol money - now bus fare actually.
As would the 500 other kids making the same journey every day.
And if we all went to the local school, it would get much better results.
Except that the SLT would still be the same weirdos put in by the chain.
The kind of people who thought it OK to have no permanent science teachers for two terms.

Bliar brought in Parental Choice - I cannot see that genie going back in the bottle.

"Very few will game by buying houses",oh perleeeease.

Ha,ha,ha.

Everybody does it ie buys/rents a house in the best catchment they can afford,it's why school Ofsted reports are even on house detail sheets at estate agents.

And you reckon you were unaware that the vast maj of parents do this..

It is a real issue I think.

Over the last ten years I have been building up a property portfolio and buying a flat ( or a house one can turn into flats) is possibly the very best investment.

People who cannot afford to buy will rent.

So. People's solutions to the house buying/renting problem?

I accept that I do not share the middle class school catchment obsession but we just bought a house. We deliberately did not buy in a grammar catchment but did not look into school catchments after that. We just bought a house and then supported the school as best we could.

Le Petit
Everybody does it
Over the last ten years I have been building up a property portfolio
HA HA HA
50% of families in the UK have incomes under £26,000 per year
find me the house in a Naice catchment that they can buy.

I know lots of non m/c parents who checked schools before buying/renting. M/c parents don't have the monopoly on giving a shit re what their local school is like.It's piss easy to find out too.

I must be some kind of underclass then.

I care passionately about education, that is why I use local schools.

hak there is no solution.

The vast vast majority of people simply cannot afford to buy a house in catchment of an oversubscribed school.

That's the truth of it.

But they can rent.

LePetit
How many council house tenants do you talk to?
How many people in crippling debt who cannot afford to move do you talk to?
How many people do you talk to who bought a house before having kids and cannot afford to move?
How many housing association tenants do you talk to?

Sorry love but MC parents are the ONLY ones who stress about it.
The Upper Class go private
The rest of the country have no real choices available.

But surely the rent would also be expensive?

talkin why did you misquote me?

You have added my post to someone else's in a pathetic attempt at misdirection!