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...?

Ummm - that is, if you think faith schools (state-funded) should be abolished...?

Oh yes

Does that make me a Marxist?

No, no (you've had the jab haven't you?) It just makes you sensible.

Hertfordshire is listed as an authority implementing a lottery. However, that is just for its (few) single-sex schools and only after some other admissions criteria have been met. I've never seen it specified in the Brighton scenario as to whether a sibling rule will apply. It just seems to me that with the lottery system, no-one knows where they are. And if there's no sibling rule, then you might "win" with DC1, and then be up the creek with the others. Sorry, but just cannot see this working in practice. In a couple of years' time, I reckon they'll have to concede it's a no-brainer and change it back again.

WELL BUSSING CHILDREN HELPED THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE US

AND IF YOU DON'T THINK WE HAVE A FORM OF SEGREGATION HERE IN THE UK, WITH LESS SOCIAL MOBILITY THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN EUROPE ...

I wish you;d stop popping up shouting all over the place, quattro

like basil bloody fawlty

SORRY POINTY - AT HOME MY CAPS ARE STUCK.

No, busing didn't help integrate schools in the US.

It lead to 'white flight', where white people basically abandoned city limits altogether to get out of their busing schemes and lead to now out of control urban sprawl in most major US cities.

Or took on second, third and more jobs to send their kids to private school.

Or, combined with the growth of religious fundamentalism and the fact that faith schools are fee-paying in the US, contributed to a now very healthy home education movement.

What did help some cities integrate better than others were urban regeneration projects and young liberal professionals buying in town to be near work starting around the mid-80s and then staying around and sending their kids to the school in those catchment areas.

I wouldn't like a lottery system here as we are rural and it could prove a nightmare. I also think the environmental impact could be horrendous. What I would like to take issue with though is those of you who would be happy with a lottery as long as there was a 'sibling rule'. That would be totally and utterly unfair. If the argument pro lottery is about fairness of opportunity then that should apply to ALL children. Child A should not automatically 'get in' just because they happen to have an older sibling; that would be discrimination against first-born and only children. I am sure that anyone who got their first child in to the school would want the sibling rule to apply but I'd bet they would soon ignore it if the first child didn't get a place and be only too happy to try elsewhere for subsequent children.

I'm not happy wih a lottery system at all, sibling rule or not, as I see it as perhaps benefitting a handful (but only after the months of agonised uncertainty along with everyone else) at the exense of many, purely in the name of social engineering. Our local comprehensive has an excellent academic record, yet has a truly mixed catchment area. Locals want their kids to go there, partly because it's a good school with good behaviour and values, but mainly because it's our LOCAL, COMMUNITY school, where all the kids nearby attend and can walk to. I refuse to feel guilty for wanting my 2nd child to go there as well, and I resent being accused (in the media and elsewhere) of being a middle-class parent with sharp elbows. Why shouldn't we want a good education for our kids? And I don't follow the argument that it's "discrimination" against first-born and only children as surley all of us have first-borns so are all in the same boat at some point or another?

Clam - I agree with most of your post. Every child should be entitled to go to their local school and LEA's should be more adept at making sure there are sufficient places. I am against the sibling rule for a lottery system as it would make a nonsense of an already flawed idea. As for us all being in the same boat at some time or other - not in my case; my dd (only child)did not get in to our catchment primary simply because over 60% places went to siblings. Any other year she would have got in and we see people who live further away from us going to the school simply because the child happens to have an older sibling. It was a high birth-rate year and because of siblings there was not a level playing field for admissions. I totally understand why families with more than one child need a 'sibling rule' but it can have a very unfair effect. Of course, the LEA's should be doing more to allow the popular schools to expand rather than looking at filling up their under-subscribed schools.

I've been at the mercy of a high-sibling intake year too (at primary level) but, frustrating as it was, I just accepted it as one of those things. I sincerely believe that its important to have whole families on board as part of the community feel of the school. The government's crass attempt at forcing all of us to take pot luck with our children's schooling in the supposed name of equality, however, is much harder to swallow. And they're not going to expand popular schools when there are classrooms in less-successful schools lying half empty. And I also think the government under-estimates the determination of parents to secure the best education they can for their children. Lottery systems will be a vote-lose, I reckon.

Bussing doesn't work, they tried it in SA after apartheid and all the white people put their kids into private school

Clam, you are dead right when you say those in charge won't allow popular, good schools to expand when other not-so-good schools can't fill their places. My son's excellent state primary has been trying to expand for four years now and the LEA keep turning them down, arguing there are spare places locally. Yeah, the spare places at the crap school where no-one wants to send their kids. Parents appeal or go private, so the places will never be filled.

Why not allow good schools to expand so children can get a good education? Blocking it is madness. And parental "choice" is a big, fat lie, frankly.

Agreed. Do you think the answer is to get rid of the whole (so-called) choice thing anyway and basically allocate your local community school regardless of whether it is faith run or not? Then perhaps what they should do is look to ensure that catchments are properly drawn. Put more resources into the 'sink' schools to bring them up - incentivise teachers to teach in these schools by paying them more (danger money).
I can't remember whether I posted this before on this thread (as have been on a other similarly themed ones) but where I live, if we all had to go to our local school, and couldn't opt out by finding religion, then it would have a good mix of intake and alot of committed parents. Unfortunatley, the reality is that so many of the children from the committed parents are 'creamed off' into the faith schools.

I nominate you, idling, to be in charge of education policy. You should be special adviser to whichever minister is in charge these days (I've lost track). When I was little, I went to a CofE school because it was our nearest - there was none of this getting a chit from the vicar to prove you were a regular worshipper. Parental choice is a chimera anyway, they should admit it and get rid of the pretence.

I live in Brighton which is the first place to have a lottery system. And to be honest the facts were was mostly misreported. It's not a city-wide lottery. Everyone's in a catchment area for 2 schools. If one of your two schools are oversubscribed, there's a lottery and you might well end up at the other one. If both are oversubscribed, then you could be sent anywhere, but one school is having extra classrooms built to stop that happening. But what's stupid is that the kids from the poorer areas now have absoutely zero chance of getting into the schools in the "good" areas because there were never prescribed catchment areas before.

We had a choice in March 2007 between paying lots for a not that great a house, but near a good state school. Or buying a house we liked and paying for school fees. I had a feeling this socialist government who (wrongly in my view) think that all children have the skills to achieve 'good' academic results, would do something mad like a lottery system.

Thank god we opted for a privite school. I feel so sorry for those people who are now in negative equity, having paid a premium for their house for the catchment area.

We're victims of living in one of those areas that people move to because the schools are os good! Schools in my area are all oversubscribed, so unless you live less than 0.5 miles away from a school, you are highly unlikely to get into it. Which is a bugger, because there are NO schools less than about 0.8 miles away from us. I find it ridiculous.

p.s. idling - you're spot on. It's the only way forward, as far as I can see. I hate being caught up in this whole hysteria about schools.

Thanks Edam - and I totally agree with your point about LEA's not allowing the 'good' schools to expand on the frankly ludicrous basis that they have places elsewhere; the whole point (well, as they spun it anyway) was that 'choice' was meant to result in closing the 'bad' whilst expanding the 'good'. I didn't believe it then and it sure as anything hasn't happened anywhere round here. Have you all heard how rural village schools are under threat of closure so the relevant authority can save money. The governor of a school was on Radio 4 this morning; his school has excellent ofsted results, is oversubscribed but the LEA want to close it because they are under-subscribed elsewhere. The school has room to expand but the LEA won't let it. Disappointing debate on the radio because they didn't ask the key question which was why close this school and not the schools with the spare places?

Idlingabout - I second Edam's nomination of you for eduction supremo. Well said.

Wouldn't that be fun. Mind you, a consortium of Mumsnetters could definitely do a better job than successive governments.