Request a state school place if you want it or not

[clarkkentsglasses]

This email is doing the rounds aimed at private school parents:

"The idea is to try to flood the Council with requests for urgent school places from September. If they get tens of thousands of emails like this we may see them under pressure."

Basically request a state school place if you want it or not.

I think you're going to have to link the thread. I didn't see it, and a pp on this thread said
There was a thread about this last week.
The poster got handed her arse on a plate.

Is it that one?

And you haven't been able to point anything like that on this thread, have you - despite it being a deliberately provocative one intended to stir up anger against private school parents. Successfully too, on this thread I've seen:

page1:
What absolute selfish pricks.

Not the smartest, for all their money, are they?

What utter arseholes. I hope the 20% increase definitely happens.

Entitled selfish pricks

This gives private school parents a bad name. Very selfish indeed.

I can't wait to vote Labour because of all the moaning private school parents.

Money doesn’t buy class, sometimes it just creates entitled arseholes

Utterly selfish and totally self absorbed.

moving onto page 2:

private schools; helping some thick but rich kids succeed

people who’ve never had to deal with any kind of financial adversity are now throwing all their toys out of the pram because they are greedy and want to keep all their wealth for themselves

entitled private schooled idiots

OK, I'm not going to go through the other 6 pages, but the insults and name calling have continued including calling us cunts and a poster saying they want to tax 40% instead.

@Aladdinzane has poured fuel on the fire, including comments at 10:52, 11:03 and 12:23 which imply that private school parents are doing this. When it's clearly made up bullshit intended to rile people up.

shit-stirring
VULGAR SLANG
noun

1. the action of intentionally causing trouble.

It's exactly what @Aladdinzane is doing.

But as you said, Surrey is an unusually wealthy county, and for this reason we probably don't have to worry about too much migration between private and state provision?

Can you really not see that this assertion is not logical?

You're an economist. You understand about behaviour at the margins, right?

Why are you still in denial that that these kind of posts are being written when I just proved to you that there are posters on MN who are clearly trying to rabble rouse on these threads? I evidenced this by copying and pasting an example along with date as well as the next post on that thread which was an ineffective "Does MN allow plotting threads (laughing emoji x2)". I am not saying the rabble rousing is necessarily working but not one of the private school parents on that thread called it out, which doesn't show them in a great light.

I am not naming the posters or linking the thread publicly but if you feel you have to further validate it then PM me and I will send you the link. The post is a classic example of 'shit stirring' in the first degree. Wouldn't you agree?

And how about the rabble rousing on this thread?

Or does it not matter in this direction??

I searched for your thread. It's in AIBU, where lots of weird stuff is said.

3 posters made posts which were a bit crap. Within the next 5 posts, people wrote:

So you would happily cause chaos for state schools and the children in them. Probably wouldn't be nice for your own child either

Are you joking? I really hope you are.

And most people just ignored it because it was clearly someone just talking crap.

Compare that to this thread, and all the insults and malice thrown at private schools.

@strawberrybubblegum

"You're an economist. You understand about behaviour at the margins, right?"

Of course, that's why I don't think that Surrey would be too badly effected, the general wealth and income levels of people living there who send their children privately will continue to do so, they aren't making these decisions at their limits.

Some will, most won't.

@strawberrybubblegum

"Compare that to this thread, and all the insults and malice thrown at private schools."

I think its evident that you only see what you want to see. There have been nasty comments from people who are pro privates and anti this policy all over mumsnet. But hey, enjoy your Friday night.

I agree that there are a lot of nasty comments on both sides. However, you are deflecting. At least have the grace to admit that some individuals on here are actively trying to sabotage state schools. You were saying upthread "screenshot it or it didn't happen" about emails to parents. Well, this is a slightly different platform but it is proof that it is happening. I believe the posters who are commenting on that particular thread are not private school parents. However, the one who asked if it was allowed with the laughing emojis is.

Insults are not pleasant from either side but this type of calling parents to arms is horrible and, if it gets traction, it directly and intentionally harms state schools and their pupils. Even if a government policy might adversely affect another group of children, it still does not justify it.

They're not actively trying to sabotage schools. They're being pissed off.

Like the 11 posters I quoted from the first 2 pages on this thread who called private school parents names and called for extra taxes on them. And the others on the following 6 pages. And the others on the other threads.

The vitriol is much, much more in that direction. It is you and @Aladdinzane who only see what you want to see

At least have the grace to admit that some individuals on here are actively trying to sabotage state schools.

That is not what they would be trying to do. What they would be trying to do would be reverse a policy on VAT - it is a suggested route of protest. One I think likely to be unsuccessful. But if you support marchers closing down streets to support Hamas each weekend, or climate activists pouring paint on Monets then you should be content with this action. It is from the same ilk.

Why such an agressive stance towards me? I have said nothing nasty at all. I have only called out that it is awful that some people would actively harm state schools and by extension their DC just to make their point. You say you think that would be awful yet you can't seem to see the difference between actively sabotaging schools and insults from the other side that are nasty but not actively damaging anyone. It is ludicrous that you are saying that I am only seeing what I want to see when I have said that there is fault on both sides. It sounds like your emotion is clouding your judgement.

insults from the other side that are nasty but not actively damaging anyone

I would disagree with this. Insults ‘other’ the other side making people feels justified in mistreating them. I

@Sloejelly
@strawberrybubblegum

I've truly seen terrible things said, and all the different threats about how formerly PE kids will get all the benefits of this and average income kids will suffer.

You both do seem rather angry.

The wealth distribution curve is shifted in Surrey, Edinburgh and Bristol compared to other places, but it's still a distribution curve.

So unless Surrey has some weird unique distribution of wealth with a gap from the income level where people choose to afford private school now to the point where they choose to afford private school+20%, then when the price moves, some parents will go from choosing private to choosing state (I think it's likely this will be felt much more in the next 5-10 years where parents who would have chosen private will now choose state, rather than a sudden exodus next year) .

And that high current number also means that more people will go from being able to afford it to not.

Say you have 100,000 kids in schools in a county. If 3% of them are in private and 10% of them migrate then that's 300 kids you need to find spaces for. If 30% of them are in private and 10% of them migrate then that's 3000 kids you need to find spaces for

And the proportion of private school places to state school places means there isn't the slack in state to absorb that high number in proportion to existing state schools.

In the case of the county with 3% of kids in private, those 300 kids need to be absorbed in state schools which currently educate 97,000 kids. That council will probably be fine.

But in the county with 30% of kids currently in private, the 3000 kids migrating (10% of a higher number means more kids migrating) need to be absorbed in state schools which currently educate 70,000 kids (fewer schools to absorb them, since private schools have taken so many kids). That's a 4% increase. There are currently 55 state secondary schools in Surrey, most of them pretty much full. A 4% increase means another 2 schools will be needed.

Sigh, Surrey's metrics from average income, to average house price are higher than the rest of the country, because Private schooling is highly connected to both, they have a significantly larger number of private school students (plus they have big boarding schools).

"The high number of people currently affording private does mean that the distribution curve is more towards the right in Surrey, Edinburgh and Bristol than other places, but that high current number also means that more people will go from being able to afford it to not."

No it doesn't.

"A 4% increase means another 2 schools will be needed."

You are assuming that 4% all are not distributed across the county there.

Distribute the students across say 28 of the schools, and across 5 year groups (7-10 and 12, as this assumes parents will keep students in their exam years in school)

17 kids per year group.

For a ten form entry ( which is average), that's 1.7 kids per form, and that's being generous to your sums as I've concentrated the numbers into only 28 schools. Doable.,

Run them with even distribution? Ok. Works out at 0.9 kids per form group.

They won't need new schools.

You think they'll increase the number of kids they take into a year by 4%? Or 11% iif you're right that they're concentrated into 28 schools in 5 years.

So why don't they allow 10% extra now? They currently turn kids away.

@strawberrybubblegum

I halved the number of schools to allow for those that didn't have spaces, in a 10 form entry with spaces it would be relatively easy to accommodate 17 kids.

All 55 Surrey secondary schools aren't 10 form entry. If they were, then there would be 100,000 state school secondary pupils in Surrey. There are actually 60,000.

So we're talking average 6 form entry, ie 150 per year. 17 extra kids aren't so easy to add.

3 kids per form in a school with spaces? Could be done.

This is also assuming all 10% leave their private and go state, there will obviously be some movement amongst the privates too.

It is not them they would be mistreating, it is state school children in general. Can you see the difference?

I've just found some numbers for Surrey schools admissions.

In Sep 23, there were only 2 secondary school out of the 55 which were below PAN on offer day: a total of 55 spaces below PAN available. I saw 4 of them which seem to have added 1 or 2 bulge classes. At least 37 had offered more than PAN and said they intended to return to PAN. I don't know enough about school admissions to know what that means in practice.

https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/328315/Secondary-allocation-figures-September-2023.pdf

So half of the schools having enough space for an extra 17 a year seems optimistic.

When application numbers are down, it makes sense to offer slightly over PAN - because a number will go on to withdraw their acceptance due to getting offered a waiting list place at a higher preference school, committing to an independent school place, moving home, having a successful appeal elsewhere or deciding to EHE - if only PAN was offered, the schools then have to go through multiple new offers through the local authority (which takes time and some LAs only reoffer at fixed points) and, combined with the numbers who will fail to turn up in September for the previously mentioned reasons - completely ignoring fake/malicious applications - they could end up significantly under and find it difficult to get the numbers back up by the time of the October census, which is the one on which funding for the following year is calculated.

Once a school is undersubscribed, if they are not able to get back to PAN quickly enough, the LA is likely to start directing them to take all Fair Access cases, which can rapidly introduce a great deal of pressure on an undersubscribed school due to the usual circumstances which lead to children on those lists - things such as new to country & zero knowledge of English, repeated exclusions, violence, going into care, sexual abuse, gang activity, bullying, carrying weapons - potentially manageable if it's one or two, but if it's following a gang where 5-10 of those involved are all moved to that one school, it's merely relocating the problem for another couple of months, rather than making it possible to do something to combat it. They're also penalised in the next academic year for this (as that's when the funding is received), affecting their ability to provide for the following cohort.

By erring on the side of caution and only creating bulge years, not reaching the full 30 extra places means a school can increase capacity but not be forced to take more FAP admissions than is manageable. It also prevents them from committing to employ staff/extra supplies/additional space in classrooms, canteens and timetabling to accommodate another 30 but then find that extra 30 aren't coming.

Increasing PAN would likely result in the local authority objecting to the proposals when they already know the numbers will be down as well, but a decision to offer a bulge class is that of the school/MAT alone. It's also necessary to consult 2 years beforehand to permanently increase or decrease PAN, which adds further administrative burden.

Ah, OK - thanks for explaining that. So actually, that doesn't help to know whether there were any spaces left in the schools when everything had settled down at the start of the year.

Well, I guess we'll see how it all turns out!

Well I am aware of someone who contacted Surrey CC about a year 9 place for September and was told that there aren’t any and to apply to schools out of county.