School admissions in the 80s and 90s

[LockInAtTheFeathers]

After speaking to my mum about applying for my primary school place in the mid 90s and some posts I've read on here, it seems that back in the 80s and 90s there was no centralised system for school admissions and you just rang the schools concerned who would add you to their list. It sounds like there were admission criteria of some sort, e.g. apparently the local Catholic school said you had to be baptised and the local C of E school said you had to be churchgoers, while the community primary automatically gave a place to everyone in the nursery.

How did this work in practice? Would schools have a set number of places and did they have to fill them (e.g. would the Catholic school have to take someone who wasn't baptised who applied if they still had places, like they would nowadays, or could they say no and leave the place unfilled?). Could they go over the admissions number if there were more local kids than was thought? Did they fill by first come first served or who met an admissions criteria best? What if all the schools you rang said no? It all just seems so different to today's preference system that is centralised and takes months to sort out.

By the time I was applying for secondary school in the early 00s the equal preference system that still applies today was in place in my LEA, so it seems like a lot changed in those 7 years!

In our borough in 1988 (when I started primary) you started the term you were five. So Sept-Dec born kids started in September, Jan-Mar born kids started after Christmas and Apr-Aug kids started after Easter. In my school there were three forms of entry, so Reception started off with just one form and grew as the year went on.

I started primary in the mid 70s. Our year was big, so the head (nun, it was a catholic school) decided to keep all the summer born children down a year. Except the youngest, who was too clever, as she explained to the other parents. Anyway all the parents complained and it didn’t happen, so I guess our class stayed big. Unbelievable now.

Three points of entry to Reception was a headache for staffing (ex-governor here) as in our (very large) school it meant that the first class (autumn entry) had a teacher all year, the second class (January entry) just needed a teacher for two terms and the third class (April entry) the teacher did just the one term. Sometimes teachers coming back from maternity leave could be slotted into one of those classes but usually it meant finding a supply teacher. Sometimes the January class teacher was a permanent member of staff who did floating supply in the autumn.

There must have been big changes in the 1980s as when we moved in the early 70s my parents just wrote to the LEA in our new city giving our new address, and the LEA wrote back saying our nearest two schools were full and allocating us places at another school. I doubt there was any sort of appeals system.

When we moved on to secondary school, I dimly recall a system where you could say what your preferred schools were, probably limited to 1, 2 or 3 schools, but not everybody got what they wanted. No idea how places were allocated.

I went to primary school in 1980 and mu
mum just had to walk down and put our name in a list. Unless you were RC there wasn’t a choice, they just took all the children within the catchment.

it was 2 form entry, my year had 28 in one class and 30 in the other, my brother’s 3 years later had 42 and 41!

education reform act of 1988, Maggie thatcher going after parents votes

prior to that most kids had no choice. You went to your nearest primary. That primary fed into the nearest secondary . No form filling…you just went with flow.

if you were in a city with multiple secondary schools at the same distance to you, you could request- but that was an exception.

Church schools were an exception- they’d prioritise their parishioners, but pre 1970 they’d typically be local families anyway as a lot of people didn’t have cars to get to churches a few miles away.

@Mrs1010: When I started school, the rule was that went at the beginning of the term after your fifth birthday. I was five in December 1955 and started school in January 1956

In mid 90s it was done on the same system as now with a catchment area. Half of my middle school were in the catchment for one high school, half in another. You applied through the LA and were guaranteed your catchment but if you wanted somewhere else and they had spaces you could go there instead

Late 60s. Aug born so I never did reception & started in Y1. I remember there being 4 year old in reception so that must have been optional. If you were catholic you went to nearest one. So our classes in the 70s were often up to 42 kids & no TAs. Lines of desks too - much earlier than you'd see now

Mid 1970s , we went to our nearest school. I had a summer birthday so started that Easter and was in the first class for that term.and the next year.

They switched to a 3 tier system, so the whole of the top two years moved up to middle school at the same time, and the top two years of the secondary moved down.

We all then moved to upper together. I do remember my mum wanting me to try for a scholarship at the private girl's school, but my dad wouldn't let me.

I went to school in 1991 in northern city. There was definitely a centralised system as I wasn't initially given my school and my parents appealed to the LEA.

My mum attended a panel hearing with parents who also hadn't been given places at the same school. One parent had a very detailed argument saying school could accommodate all applicants as they had in a previous year with statistical proof. My mum didn't know this but the panel allowed everyone to go.

I went to the CofE school round the corner which was better than the county one opposite my house. I think my mum did go to see the head and said she went to church, which she did, although she was catholic. For secondary, she wanted us to go to the former grammar so gave it a shot and my sister was one of only four in her class to get in because we weren’t in catchment. By the time I went in 89 there must have been more choice because about a third of my class went although I would have got in as a sibling.

This was the rule for my mid 70s born siblings too but I started at 4 in 82 so it had changed by then.

It must have varied a lot. My husband grew up in London and started school before he was 5. I grew up in Scotland and started school a few weeks after my 5th birthday. (Back in the 60s.)

I lived in the north east. I have no idea how admissions worked for my primary school - but I went to the nearest. Most kids went to our nearest secondary too, but I was terrified of it and told my parents I wanted to go to the all-girls Catholic school that one of my friends was planning to go to. Neither of us was Catholic but they had some places for non-Catholics. Our parents had to send them our primary school reports and were interviewed. My friend's mum was an alumni, more pushy and middle class than mine, and a teacher herself so knew the system. She always said she put in a good word for me. There was obviously some academic selection going on as all the non-Catholic girls ended up in the top set.

Some schools were hand-picking their intake. One of our local schools did its own banding test and to get in a child had to be one of the highest scoring in their band, have a good primary school report, write a paragraph about themselves and get through an interview. Their results plummeted when forced to drop that and give priority to siblings and the nearest children instead.

I'm early 40's and when I went to primary school you applied directly to the school and they had criteria as it was a Church of England school, things like

• being christened
• regular church attender
• living in the village
• siblings in the school

Nowadays round here its dealt with by the local education authority. Criteria is now

• looked after children or those with statements or SEN
• siblings
• living in the village

No mention of church
The school nursery doesn't give you automatic progression to the infants section and infants does not automatically progress to the juniors level so you in theory apply for all 3 sections of the school!!

The catchments are bigger tho so many new houses being built it's difficult to know if all the kids will get in!!!

The school making people re-apply is incase people leave the area so they can say they no longer meet the criteria And won't be offered a place at the next level as has happend when dd moved from nursery to infants section - they seemed to have a clear out!!!!

Everyone in my village went to the local Church of England primary school. It wasn't (and still isn't) a diverse area, but there was no requirement to attend church to get a place. However there was a strong turn out at church simply because the Sunday school was so well run that kids wanted to go. A lot of children went whose parents didn't go to church. They would drop them off and pick them up afterwards.

I lived in a grammar school area. There wasn't huge pressure on places so the grammars weren't super selective. The alternative secondary modern had a farm, which really appealed to some kids. From what I remember everyone got into the school they wanted to go to and we all mixed socially at the local church-run youth club.

I should probably add that my primary school was so small that it had mixed year group classes. The idea of not getting in was inconceivable.

My eldest started in 2004, I just went to the school the day before term started as we moved house and had to be in the area. Signed her up with the school that day and they started the following day.

Everyone went to local primary schools, unless you went private.

I remember you had 3 choices for secondary and you had to state your first preference. The schools were aware of their position on the list and popular schools used the first preference to filter applications for interview

There were interviews for state faith schools but it was coordinated by the LA, so you only got one offer. Lots of cherry picking of the best students.

There was National Curriculum till something like 1985

They brought that in to make it easier for those having to change schools

I mean there was No National Curriculum till then

Just an interesting fact

I started secondary in 1984 and there was a centralised system then so for secondary it came in before you started primary, at least in the borough I was in. I lived in London too. Not sure about primary - I seemed to go straight up from the attached infants school but my mum may have had to follow some process i was unaware of.

National curriculum also started much later - I finished secondary in 1989, and was unaffected by a national curriculum. So looked it up. It was first introduced in 1988 which makes sense as I was already halfway through my GCSEs then so it wouldn't have affected our cohort:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Curriculum_for_England#:~:text=The%20National%20Curriculum%20for%20England%20was%20first%20introduced%20by%20the%20Education%20Reform%20Act%201988.%20At%20the%20time%20of%20its%20introduction%20the%20legislation%20applied%20to%20both%20England%20and%20Wales.