Scrap school catchments now

[Momentumummy]

If Labour wants to eventually end parents buying privilege through private schools, it needs to go after school catchments. How can it be fair to decide schools by distance to gates when it often depends on ability to pay rent or mortgage which will usually be higher in catchment for good schools?

The only fair system is a lottery one by borough (at least for secondary when kids are old enough to travel alone). You should be allocated a place within your borough but it should be randomized and not based on distance to gates.

The hypocrisy is people only now concerned about fairness when something adversely affects them. They were quite happy for there to be a two tier education system whilst they can afford it.

Sums up most of these threads, “We only care about inequality & unfairness now we are on the wrong side of it”!

Yes, this is absolute bollocks. Germany and some other EU countries provide much more social support, whilst e.g. disabled people have been intimidated and starved by the UK gov for years.

I was about to suggest emigrating to North Korea. 😂

I had to double check what "discrimination" is https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights

So which groups do grammar schools discriminate against in your universe?

Regardless what you think, people here don’t have a massive drive to be the best they can. Everyone can be amazing if they try and put their time and effort into it. Some people have to try harder because we have different cognitive abilities or that we grew in not so very well off homes, or that we born in war zones, or born in countries were girls have little right to education, fighting cultural norms etc . But goodness, I have seen people change their whole life by aiming high at school and not giving up as education is the only thing that will help improve your standard of living and their social status.

Unless you have lived abroad, and experienced this, you won’t be able to see it.

This learned helplessness needs to go away.
People living in the UK have a very privileged life and get to choose what they want to be and do because the opportunities are up for grabs for people who seek them. Whether they seek them or not, that’s the question.

My DC has had experience of two local officially non-selective comps. The most sought after had 8% on fsm, the second best - 11%. Average in London now - 24%.
Yes, there is a council estate very close to
the best school, but (miraculously!) children from the estate don't go to that school. I wonder why... 🤔

@Ubertomusic do you know what school they go to?

Also it’s a bit difficult to compare one schools FSM % to the whole of England as there are huge variations within areas. And living on a council estate doesn’t necessarily mean you qualify for FSMs.

No idea as I don't work for LEA. The best school is a solid champagne socialists' establishment and they've been making troubles at the school for years - but not as much as Momentum mob 😂

I'm not comparing to the whole of England.

@Ubertomusic "So which groups do grammar schools discriminate against in your universe?"

I don't know about @Longma's universe. But in mine the selective system discriminates against the disadvantaged.

We have a school 5 mins walk away but our council covers an area 930 sq miles, not sure we have boroughs any more so you would have to do electoral wards maybe?

Either way it would really annoy me, we moved to this house to be in this catchment. I don’t want my year 7 travelling an hour to school vs 5mins walk.

Certainly wouldn't work in my LA.

It takes three and a half hours to drive across it , so would have to be broken down into areas anyway. No different to a catchment.

Some of the best schools I work with are those in disadvantaged communities, where staff are amazing at closing the gaps.

Some rural families already travel on country roads for over an hour to their nearest school.

I can only assume that the parents that oppose grammar schools do so because they have thick kids and don't want them to miss out on the opportunity of bullying clever kids at the local comprehensive.

Why shouldn't clever kids have a safe space where they can be clever and have that celebrated instead of it putting a target on their back?

The politics of envy is alive and well in Britain.

@Ubertomusic where do you see FSM % for the particular area? I thought the gov stats just compared to the national average?

I just assumed you knew why the council estate kids didn’t go to the schools you are referring too.

in my London borough most schools have pretty high FSM % including the popular ones.

@ThisOldThang "I can only assume that the parents that oppose grammar schools do so because they have thick kids and don't want them to miss out on the opportunity of bullying clever kids at the local comprehensive"

Au contraire, ma capitaine......

Nope. Pure chaos would ensue.

Like it's not hard enough to get children ready for the day and be able to get to work yourself without having to get children into schools across towns and counties! You know who would be penalised - the mothers!

Alternative suggestions; invest more in schools, pay teachers better wages, allow a basic standard of discipline by school staff?

Until one kid is in a school 7 miles north of home, the second,8 mikes east and the third 3 miles SW.

Most schools have mixed catchment areas. Most schools aren’t in London

This. Removing catchments would be absolute madness.

I agree with the OP. In my area smarty well off middle class families buy or rent houses in catchment of successful state schools which are more expensive.

should be a lottery system with priority given to those kids within a 30 min travel time of the school or a flat catchment area of six miles.

or a flat catchment area of six miles.

How would that work, if the catchment was too large people would just move closer to the school & those houses would cost more…

A six mile catchment is going to contain a wider variety of houses eg council etc and less likely to push up the house prices in the area the way that being 0.5 km to the school gate does. It basically means any child without a reasonable distance can apply.

@Stopsnowing yes but how would it work if within the 6 miles catchment there were far too many dc? Or are you thinking everyone lives rurally.

Just because some kids travel an hour to get to school, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. And most of the kids doing this in London are doing it to get to private schools.

Also, comparing anywhere else in the UK with London is insanity. Have you any idea how appalling public transport is in the rest of the UK? Where I grew up it wouldn’t have been possible to get to any school other than the catchment school because there was no transport.

The schools near where we live didn't offer much for the subject area DD wants to specialise in, and we couldn't afford to move, so she travels 90 minutes each way for a comprehensive that does, having got a place via aptitude test.

If the OP's system of no school choice came in and if we didn't like the local offer (we didn't) then we would probably opt to homeschool or use online schooling instead.

I suspect an awful lot of other parents would do the same.

OP also hasn't said what her plans are for things like state boarding schools which cater for a lot of military families.

At secondary level it's very easy to have an hour's commute to state school in London. If I look at where DD's primary friends went on to, almost all the schools would be at least 40 minutes.