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

[UnquietDad]

...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...?

A lottery is random so it might feel unfair. I am sure for parents it feels unfair that they don't have the chance to influence things in their favour by house prices or just being savvy about applying to the right school any more if that ever happens in most areas. If I were a head teacher unless I were really left wing I'm sure I would prefer to have children whose parents were interested in and committed to education in my school.

I cant see how this will work with transport / siblings etc

but there needs to be something

in our village, the rich kids go to one school, the poor kids to another. That's a vuillage. because of how the catchment is drawn up.

Fortuantely, the poorer school is fine (actually better but I am bitter and my kids are at the 'rich' one), but the segregation is bizarre and a lot of the kids here never meet kids living just streets away until they hit 11 and go to seniors.

And the split is explicit- heads saying 9at the rich school) 'We wont be providing wrap around care here as we dont want that sort of aprent, that works'

Because the rich school is fundfed by church it gets to exclude and have control as well- so no people of other faith, colours, all the Sn kids are currently being disposed of (3 last week)- and isn't education about mixing with all types of people?

Sorry, rant over

They don't want the "sort of parent" who works??
So they want people who are unemployed then??

I think he means rich housewives who are kept by men in rather archaic form.

Nope, they want Dad's (and no variations on the norm permitted!) who keep their wives (not partners or anything!) in a suitable style (seems to be attendance at the local health spa) that work is a non issue to them.

There are many to choose from around this way, its a nice village from where its easy to get to 3 cities in under an hour.

Personally I think thats crap (as a student I sort of work), but the local private takes the working parents, this school takes the better off parents, and the others go wherever

Xenia, Head is a SHE!

Policywonk - Muesli mountain are ok about it - better to be in a lottery with a chance, then have no chance at all, which was the system before as they had no school close to them so were sent all over the town, to poorer performing schools. Tbh, I think they are keeping quiet because they now don't want to cause a fuss and have the whole thing reviewed again.

UQD - it did cause people to protest a lot on the streets of Brighton - loads of meetings, angry demos, even a councillor being replaced form the committee because she was going to vote 'the wrong' way. It was very badly handled and has caused a lot of bad feeling. I suspect when the results come in, there will be a lot of newspaper coverage of the type 'we can see the school from our window, but we have to travel 4 miles to another school' and 'best friends split up after school lottery madness' etc etc.

Hwr, the two best schools are bang next to each other in an area where people move to because of the schools iykwim. A lot of people have been making their housing decisions in Brighton based on the location of the schools and feel the rug has been pulled form under them.

The real scandal is the fact that the lowest performing school now has no middle class in its catchment at all. There is only one school the children can go to and is is poor. The estates it draws from are almost exclusively council, and because of the catchments for the other schools, people living there have no chance of getting their children educated anywhere else. The reason this happened is because Muesli Mountain parents were a very strong organised group and they got their way at the expense of other areas.

Sorry, prob too much detail there. Just wanted to get across that while the scheme may be operational in Brighton, it is not 'sorted' and I suspect the long term is that it will fail...

I don't have a problem with the lottery system per se. I just don't see how the transport/sibling thing will work out, and I agree that they may be an effect on the community.

And just harking back to an earlier post; three miles (or just under) might not be far to walk but not all children at mainstream are capable of it either physically or cognitively. My dd can't make the 1 mile walk to her school; I'm just glad that she's there already and we won't have to fight to get her into our nearest school. Not that it's anything to shout about, more the better end of a bad bunch. I imagine having to go to a crap school and have to pay for the privilege of actually getting them there won't go down too well.

katepol - are there falling rolls in Brighton? Several of the secondaries here are earmarked for closure/amalgamtation and I wonder whether getting rid of catchment and using a lottery system may make it easier for them to do that; fill the schools that everyone wants and close the empty one(s).

I wonder if more people would benefit from the system than would suffer.

Lotteries could only work in towns, not country areas - in my country area it would be ridiculous to bus pupils 20 miles to another school the other side of the district. What about the idea of restricting higher education places to specific percentages from each sixth form? I think I read about this this week as a proposal - get the middle classes to enrol their children in under achieving schools so their offspring can get a university place?

lilymaid - even in towns it would be a disaster. Don't forget one secondary can be 5 miles from another on the other side of a town/city, and with morning traffic that can be an hour's journey. And the same problems apply of undermining communities, etc.

The university place proposal sounds like blackmail to me.

I travelled 10 miles to my grammar school. Children who failed the 11+ got to go to school in their own town. It wasn't a problem to get the (public) bus. I suppose people who have to travel across town for a better school than they would otherwise have got will feel the same. It is only those who think they have paid for the place at the better school (through house prices) who will be hacked off at travelling across town for a worse school.

For primary schools it is a complete no brainer. You can not expect a 4 year old to travel across a city to get to school and it will impact on social relationships. For senior schools I can see the advantage. We only have one secondary school in our town so it would not really apply to us. However I grew up in Swindon and I can really see the benefits of applying a lottery system to school places there. I had the misfortune of going to Oakfield School a typical sink estate comp which eventually closed after being under special measures for a number of years, I think at the time of closure only 6% of pupils obtained 5 good GCSE passes. Studies have shown that a better mix of pupils has a positive impact on results and childrens behaviour including those children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In my humble opinion I would say that in principle a lottery system is a great idea for secondary places but totally unfeasible for primary schools. I would be rioting in the streets if they introduced it for primary schools. In fact ds doesn't actually have a primary place for next year anyway so lottery or no lottery we would still have lost out!

All those people complaining about distance will be the ones who live near good schools and who think they might be bussed into bad ones under a lottery system. If the only decent school in town was 20 miles away, parents would send their kids there.

The environmental argument is valid but it will be wheeled as a cover for other objections.

Agree NKF - but also, if all children used school buses (and if school bus schemes were well funded so that the buses were clean and safe, maybe with a 'conductor' figure on each bus), there'd be far fewer cars on the road and the environmental impact would be a positive one.

all those complaining about the distance haven't raised a peep at disabled children having to travel an hour or more to SN schools. My 3 yo has an hours taxi journey and an hour back. She's 3.
I've had to fight like crazy to get her into the local mainstream but they don't have the expertise for a quadraplegic child.
But now it might be happening to 'normals' as well, an outcry.
Perhaps all this will lead to parents protesting that everyone needs decent schooling close by and no child should travel an hour to school, even disabled ones.

At age 4 our daughter took a school coach, but about 10 miles to Habs school, loved it, big girls on the coach to look after her, independence, no problem. But children at grammar schools always travelled. Parents who value education often have made all kinds of changes to working hours to get children to school or they hire someone to do it - it's why many get an au pair once the chidlren are at school and nanny goes to do the school runs morning and evening. At one point we had children at 3 different schools and their father at a fourth school.

India Knight in today's Sunday Times writes about schools. Her first much older children failed to get into the local state religious school - didn't go to church (RC) enough so they paid for them to go private. Her new child has special needs and they applied to the local C of E and were told they had not started going to church earlier enough so she's cross. But isn't the fault with her for not caring about her child enough to realised you have to start the going to church thing a lot earlier?

..or the child's father. Schools are not just a mother's issue.

Good point NMC- the second option LEA suggested to us involved ds3 (4.5 and ASD for those who may not know) leaving home just after 7 and returning around 5.

So NOT going to happen!

Xenia- have you tried taking a child with SN to church? just ain't always that easy!

Xenia writes 'Parents who value education often have made all kinds of changes to working hours to get children to school or they hire someone to do it - it's why many get an au pair once the chidlren are at school and nanny goes to do the school runs morning and evening.'

Umm, even poorer parents value education you know, even if they can't hire a nanny and au pair. When DH worked full time as a top class researcher (he has a PhD) for the defence industry with top secret clearance he still couldn't afford to even pay for a cleaner let alone nannies and suchlike. Scientists are paid appallingly in this country. Now he is a carer and gets bugger all but that doesn't mean we don't value education any less than those who hire servants.
I'd say most parents who value education don't have that kind of money.

and Xenia, was your 4 yo non-verbal and blind when doing this journey? I imagine not. DD finds taxi's very traumatic and can't tell us. She also gets horribly travel sick because of her brain damage.

Xenia also said some stuff about the SN mum being at fault for not going to church earlier.
I've spent 4 years with dd in and out of hospital, up most nights dealing with seizures etc. For 3 years she screamed and screamed at strange voices.
Is it my fault we didn't get to church? Would you get to church in those conditions. Oh, I forget, you have a nanny to cover that sort of stuff.

If that C of E church is state run then her child can get in on a SN place. They get priority.
Dunno what happens if its church run but in my experience many churchy schools don't want SN children. Hardly very Christian.