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.

I don’t think most of the posters arguing against your bonkers idea of scrapping school catchments has even mentioned their opinions of private schools - certainly I haven’t seen any evidence in the replies that anyone wants ‘to clobber those who have chosen private schools’ I think you are massively projecting now. I don’t think school catchments should be scrapped and I also don’t have a problem with people sending their kids to private schools.

OP you are completely missing the point that scrapping catchments would be fairer. How can forcing a child to travel everyday in an area where public transport is not the best be fair? We are not all in London. How can making people pay for public transport when they carnt afford it because fair? My child goes to school 5 minutes walk away, why should he be denied that place just because ex private school parents want it to be a lottery now? How is that fair to kids who have used state schools since they where 4, why should they lose out on local school?

Agree with @whiteroseredrose

In terms of friendships, birds of a feather stick together. In DC's schools and from friends with DC in the local high school, the wealthy kids socialise together, the DC from poorer backgrounds socialise together. They don't mix or have anything to do with eachother.

Children are like adults & hang out together when they have a common interest.

As adults you don't often find groups of friends where there are computer scientists mixed in with the security guard from Poundland or lawyers who are mates with bus drivers. They just wouldn't have lots in common. People generally like to be friends with others who have a similar interest & so if you banish catchment areas then you are making things really complicated & denying some children the chance to be with their friends.

I don't know how you solve the issue of houses being bought or rented in areas for over subscribed schools. Some schools are victim to the new harsh OFSTED grading & not sure how that will affect this. I can't see houses holding their value if the school is rated as inadequate under new guidelines.

@sleepyscientist

It's even cheaper say 3k for the year if you rent for year 6 and part of year 7 before buying back outside of catchment

I think this type of behaviour is what is unfair. The children aren't genuinely from the catchment if the parents simply move into rented to get the place then move away again.

In terms of friendships, birds of a feather stick together. In DC's schools and from friends with DC in the local high school, the wealthy kids socialise together, the DC from poorer backgrounds socialise together. They don't mix or have anything to do with each other

I agree with @whiteroseredrose as well; this has been the case in every school I’ve attended and every school I’ve taught in. It’s now turning out to be case in DD’s primary too.

I have a fair few right-on Hackney/Walthamstow-dwelling friends who frequently congratulate themselves on ‘sending their kids to the local school’, rather than fretting about various schooling options like the rest of us. What they refuse to see is that their ‘local school’ happens to have a critical mass of similarly right-on middle class types, who form their own bubble and don’t mix with the tougher kids, so there’s essentially streaming by social class. I’ve seen similar when I’ve taught in rural schools - ‘naice’ kids from the village in one friendship group; poor kids from the nearby estate in the other, and never the twain shall meet.

Some of our grammars have residence rules. You must be at an address for 18 months prior to 1 Sept in admission year and it must be primary residence. Not a second home. Yes, they check.

No catchments is the least green policy ever dreamed up. Love this notion that we all have public transport! We don’t have a village school where I live. When my dc started at the local catchment school, DC in this village were attending 12 different schools. Mix of state and private. From Eton to a special school. Eton didn’t require daily transport but all the others did. Transport provided to catchment only (unsafe walking route) and virtually no one used what was an outstanding school (a few of us did!)! Bonkers.

Do you suggest scrapping catchment areas and cancelling VAT policy?

Sorry OP, but it's a shit idea that would never work. Society is broken, some kids will always be disadvantaged by their upbringing and until shit parenting (which happens for many reasons) is addressed, nothing will change. Even making all schools better won't help that much when there are so many problems in society.

I understand what OP is getting at. It's a London-centric problem and it is absolutely awful. We moved in to a borough when ours were babies, thinking there was loads of choice. We had six primaries within a mile in any direction. Sounds great right? Except we couldn't get a single one of them. Three were faith, which we didn't qualify for. One was a five minute walk away, but could have been on the moon for all that was worth. For the remaining non-faith three you had to live 0.5 - 0.6 miles near the school (in expensive housing that NEVER came on the market for rent or purchase). We were, effectively in an education "black hole" and were offered a primary place miles away in a rubbish school as every other good school in between had extremely tiny catchments too. It felt like an absolute farce. At the time we were raging that the faith schools had to go so all local residents had access to schools close to them. Or, there had to be a lottery system to make things fairer in some way. We've now moved, but hear from friends that the situation is even more bonkers at secondary. The good ones are oversubscribed, and kids are being offered places miles away from their homes to the sink schools elsewhere. As with primary, all the good schools in between where they live and where their kids were offered a place, have tiny catchments so it's a long line of "nope, can't go here" schools.

Edited to add: a minor difference in postcode or street or where you live should not have such an outsize effect on where your kids can go to school.

@CoffeeAndSunrise We don’t seem to be able to crack shit parenting. My DDs nursery nurse went on to work with families in a Family Centre. SS said they should attend. She was pulling her hair out with most parents. They simply won’t follow advice. DC come last in their daily thoughts. They are chaotic and find it impossible to change. Unless someone lives with them, what on earth is the answer? Saying the right things and doing them are not the same thing.

This suggestion is as rediculous as labour wanting to end private schools

so if there are no catchment areas, how will the children get to schools that are really far away from them? Will they need more school buses? Who will pay for them, the drivers, upkeep etc? What about all the green initiatives?

what about the issue if all the school run mummies if they have to now drive multiple children to multiple different schools?

closing it yard schools - where will all the children then go to school? Where is the money going to come from for more schools, more teachers etc? Currently, there are multiple thousands of children from middle income families that would then need to be absorbed into the state sector. Where are they going to go to school? It is a real false economy because these children are not a burden in the state sector and their teachers are paid outside state sector but do pay income tax on their salaries. Why then make them all redundant? Will most of them go on the dole?

this pledge was just a way to satisfy those that like to yell and scream about how unfair it is that some people can send their children to private school, same people who bring down the rest of British society because they can’t be arsed t get off their arse to work, scrimp and save for better life.

coming from someone who sent 3 kids (at varying times, different ages) to private school - but didn’t have holidays or fancy cars, no eating out etc. Instead invested in our children’s education.

I was just pointing out that while it does happen it isn’t by default it’s because a parent has made a particular decision.

But sometimes it is by default…

Discussion isn’t just about arguing!

I’m not sure what you are discussing, some parents choose certain schools? I am aware of this little known fact 😆

It's a London-centric problem and it is absolutely awful. We moved in to a borough when ours were babies, thinking there was loads of choice. We had six primaries within a mile in any direction. Sounds great right? Except we couldn't get a single one of them.

this isn’t really an issue in London primaries anymore.

https://inews.co.uk/news/education/last-days-school-closing-run-out-children-3166831

@Glitterglitch not surprised at all. We had to leave London as housing was extortionate, so of course families had to leave. Secondaries are still full though, as the birth bulge is working it's way through, and our friends are definitely suffering that lack of schooling choice.

Secondary intake peaked last yr & is reducing going forwards. It’s quite shocking how birth rates have fallen so low & families have been pushed out.

And the way the current funding model works you want your dc to be in a fairly full school otherwise the school will lack things. It’s a mess!

@Longma

In addition there are far fewer pupils with SEN in grammar schools.

Well yes because SEN children would probably find the work challenging.

Why can't academic children have an environment which suits them. I understand that SEN children need support but they do get that in mainstream school.

Do you also want sets banned? Top set students would be unlikely to be in the same group as SEN students. It's unlikely they would mix socially too.

If you consider being academically gifted as a form of SEN, which it is, then all these anti-grammar arguments become moot.

This post shows a complete lack of understanding of what Sen is

Tell me you live in London without telling me you live in London.
We don’t even have boroughs, it’s local authorities. I live in the same la i teach in, takes me 40 mins by car. By public transport, walk one hour, get train 20 mins into city A, wait, get train out to town B 25 mins, walk 30 mins. I could think of loads of journeys that probably aren’t even possible.
I haven’t tried it but eg try googling public transport from Skipwith village ( never mind if you live outside it) to Richmond school, both in the same LA.

I agree @Morph22010 some autistic kids are several academic years above their peers, can be in the top 1% for intelligence but struggle socially and/or behaviourally and don’t respond well to the general hubbub of MS senior schools. Other autistic people may have one area of excellence where they really stand out above everyone else.

i wish people wouldn’t post ignorant nonsense about ‘SEN kids’ 🙄

It's everywhere if you google.

For example www.statista.com/statistics/1183229/free-school-meals-england-by-region/