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Original poster

So is anyone else reading this stuff about school admission lotteries...

151 replies

UnquietDad · 26/01/2008 16:24

...and thinking "if they try that on round here, there will be blood on the streets?"

Because I know I am.

Maybe some people like the idea...?

OP posts:
sherby · 26/01/2008 16:25

God yes

pooodle · 26/01/2008 16:30

Yeah its scary but its the fairest way. People shouldnt be awarded state places cos they are rich enough to buy closest to the school! Thats hardly fair. A lottery would be fair, and the sink schools would improve through having their fair share of "good" kids for a change.

FAQ · 26/01/2008 16:40

think it's ridiculous. I live next to to my local school but with a lottery I could be forced to send my children across town to school. Which if DH took them in the car would mean that there would be even more cars on the road.

Likewise parents that live on the other side of town could end up being given a place at the school next door to me........meaning they then use the car for the school run.

What would happen with siblings? People could quite easily end up having to get 2/3/4 children to school at the same time at opposite sides of town.

RustyBear · 26/01/2008 16:41

Not exactly in keeping with 'Greener routes to school' though is it?

God knows how nmany school buses taking kids who live near School A to School B and vice versa....

choccypig · 26/01/2008 16:42

But FAQ, if you lived next door to a rubbish school, I bet you'd happily drive across town to a better one

evenhope · 26/01/2008 16:43

But it's not fair unless they are going to provide the transport to bus these kids. If it is totally random you could end up with the situation where most kids are going to a school some distance away, so increasing the amount of traffic and the length of the school day.

What if you have (as we did for one year) four primary aged children, and they are placed in 4 different schools across your town- or worst a big city? You cannot physically be in more than one place at a time, and schools complain if you are late.

I take my 16 and 18 year olds to work with me. They walk to school from there, then come to my office after school. I couldn't afford to pay 2 lots of £200 a term for the school bus.

roisin · 26/01/2008 16:44

I haven't really grasped how this would work in practicality.

Our secondary school situation here is relatively straightforward - it's clear which schools:
a) You have a guaranteed place if you put them anywhere on the list
b) You have a guaranteed place if you put them first and are in catchment/have elder sibling etc.
c) You will probably get a place if you put them first even if not in catchment
d) You have a very small chance of getting in

Yet we (dh, me, and ds1 - 10) still feel confused, in limbo, and unsettled because we won't get a final decision for another 4-5 weeks yet.

FAQ · 26/01/2008 16:45

and I don't buy the "expensive area=good school close by" argument either.

My SIL has just moved to a new town near us. As she was short of time I got online to find out about primary schools for her DS.........didn't make any difference whether it was an "expensive" area to live in, or the roughest part of town - virtually all the primary schools are cr*p/on special measures!

No I wouldn't - I can't drive - and DH isn't always around in the morning to be available to drive them either. How many other famlies would find themselves "stuck" with a school the other side of town and not have any way of getting there??? Quite a lot I suspect.

evenhope · 26/01/2008 16:47

X posts FAQ

Original poster
UnquietDad · 26/01/2008 16:47

It would cause a traffic nightmare in this city.

There is already going to be one in 2011 when they merge two schools (and there's been a battle and a half about that one, I can tell you) which will mean people getting in cars on one side of the valley and going down an already-clogged access route to get to the "new" school (on the site of the less popular one) on the other side.

A lottery might work in s small town where there are only two or three secondary schools. But in a city with 30? No way.

The people affected the most will of course be those who moved in the last few years and whose children are in the "crossover" period. Maybe councils are prepared to put up with five years of hell and vitriol to get what they want...

OP posts:
Saggybumandnorks · 26/01/2008 16:47

I'm not sure that it's been well thought through. The environmental impact for a start - school run time is a nightmare as it is.

How will the less well off families get their kids to school? Is there a possibility that you will have children at two or even three different schools? Will more well off families who are allocated a 'sink' school just go off into the private sector?

policywonk · 26/01/2008 16:50

I was on a thread about this the other day and have had my views, erm, refined

For those in rural areas, or for those areas in which there isn't a lot of difference in terms of quality between schools, I don't think lotteries would work.

However, for urban areas where the best schools tend to be in the catchment areas with the most expensive houses, i think it's a great idea - provided that there is free, safe transport for the children, and that siblings get to attend the same schools. Better than rich people effectively using comprehensives as private schools conveniently funded by the tax payer. And if that brings you out onto the streets UD, I'm even more in favour.

Original poster
UnquietDad · 26/01/2008 16:50

Exactly - I do workshops at different schools and I use public transport, and it can take me an hour to get across the city even at non-peak times.

Just trying to imagine someone on a council estate in the north of the city with no car, toddler in pushchair and a child to get to school in the south-east, then back again, then the same in the afternoon... every day, all year round.

OP posts:
beautifuldays · 26/01/2008 16:51

god if they do this i think a lot of people will pull their kids out of the state sector and send them private, or home ed. it's a typical badly thought through idea by someone who has no idea what the realities for parents will actually be. blardy government

FAQ · 26/01/2008 16:52

policy - did you read my post above about trying to find a decent primary school for my SIL to send her DS to? It's a LARGE town, with a LOT of primary schools but even where the most expensive houses are most of the schools are on special measures or only just scrape their "satisfactory" from Ofsted!

And how on earth (in a large urban area) do you organise free safe transport for children that could be coming from ANYWHERE in the town/city???

Original poster
UnquietDad · 26/01/2008 16:53

policy wonk? Why do you want me on the streets?!

It's a daft idea. People would be stuck in traffic for an hour every morning, transport or no transport. Kids on the same street would go to different schools and communities would be undermined. School-friends would be people on different sides of the city and playing after school would be all but impossible. People would have their children going to school in an area where they had no emotional investment.

OP posts:
policywonk · 26/01/2008 16:53

OK (after reading UD's second post) a third proviso - lotteries to operate within a circumscribed area - say five to ten square miles?

I'll describe my situation: out local comp is a sink. Less than two miles away is one of the best comps in the country. 3-bed house in our area is roughly 100,000k less than a three-bed house in the catchment of the good school. I would be over the bloody moon if they instituted a lottery here.

FAQ · 26/01/2008 16:54

but policy - would you still be over the moon if the lottery awarded you a place at the sink school???

Original poster
UnquietDad · 26/01/2008 16:54

policywonk - our city is less than that across. Wouldn't solve the problem. Those 5-10 miles contain 20-30 schools.

OP posts:
nutcracker · 26/01/2008 16:55

I live within walking distance of 2 secondary schools, well 3 actually, and I would not be happy if my child was given a place at a school which they had to travel a long distance too, it's mad and IMO will never work.

Never mind the cost of the travel and the effect on the environment, what about if you don't want your 11 yr old child to have to sit on a bus for an hour each way (or more in traffic) just to get to school ?

I may be biased as 2 of the 3 schools by me are very good schools and so for me the current system isn't a problem, but even then without my bias, I just can't see how it would work, it would be chaos.

policywonk · 26/01/2008 16:55

Transport is a red herring. If all children used school buses there'd be a great deal less school-run traffice, not more.

UD - just because I'm all in favour of people getting up on their hind legs rather than sitting aroung moaning!

Saggybumandnorks · 26/01/2008 16:56

You won't get free transport, I'd bet my life on it - councils just can't afford it.

A couple of years ago our council pulled some of it's school bus contracts a week before term was due to start.

pooodle · 26/01/2008 16:56

well i agree with it. its about time that the poorer kids had a better chance at education, and most poor kids go to poor schools and so the circle continues with their kids.

i would have no problem sending my child to a school chosen by lottery, if i knew the school would be a mixed bag, as it would be if done by lottery!

Original poster
UnquietDad · 26/01/2008 16:56

Yes, but I;d rather not have anything to moan about in the first place, thanks.

Transport is just one issue, as I have said above.

OP posts:
FAQ · 26/01/2008 16:56

good point about communities being underminded by children from the same area being sent to differing schools, and in areas where the parents have no "attachment" to the area.

God this country has a big enough problem with the decline in "community support/spirit" without making it any worse!