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.

Of course they want to end private schools. They have said so, repeatedly, but rolled back their proposals. This daft policy which is highly likely to cost more money than it raises and which will definitely cause all no of problems for individual families, simply proves the mindset it’s coming from. As for them being businesses, less than half of them are - the others are charities and not permitted to make a profit. Finally, despite the popular belief of people in the SE, London is not the centre of the universe and is not representative of the country, especially in terms of its schooling.

Pedantic but important point - if a grammar school exists locally enough for someone to go there for A levels, the other schools in that area are by definition NOT comprehensives.

A comprehensive exists where there is no school that takes 2-25% of the highest ability children into a different institution. The ‘other’ schools - no longer called, but in practice being, secondary moderns - are close to comprehensives if the proportion of the most able is very small, but very fat from comprehensive in full 11+ areas.

If you were educated in an area with grammars, regardless of which side of the 11+ divide you yourself fell, you have by definition no experience of comprehensive schools or schooling.

@cantkeepawayforever

You're both correct and incorrect in this instance.

The grammar schools existed alongside secondary moderns in that catchment area.

I was outside the catchment area (a very rural area with a market town that contained the grammars and secondary moderns). My catchment area was purely comprehensive.

My comprehensive school didn't offer a-levels, so it was either the local dump of a comprehensive, the grammar or 'the college' for a-levels.

@Moglet4 "Of course they want to end private schools. They have said so, repeatedly, but rolled back their proposals."

So does anyone who values a fair society. But we know that it's not possible, so obviously it's not labour-or any other party's policy.

@ThisOldThang as I said-very few people have any contemporary experience of grammar schools.

Scrapping distance as a criteria only would work in a city setting, not for the bulk of the country. It’s at odds with the idea of reducing car pollution /usage.

TBH this problem is going to fix itself in about 5-6 years when the baby bust works its way to secondary school and suddenly you don’t need to live near a good school to get in it.

Saved me money as I could pass the eldest's blazer, sports kit etc to the younger ones.

It would destroy the community feel the kids in our cul de sac would all walk together to the school. This policy would have them all getting in separate cars to different schools?! Insanity and traffic mayhem.

Plus in cities housing is mixed so the schools are too. Dds state is decent the children of my cleaners go there as we have a good moan about teens my gps kids there too.

In areas where taking the 11+ is not automatic, the grammars don’t cream off all the top ability students as large numbers never sit it. So while there’s fewer higher level students in grammar area comprehensive schools, there are full range of abilities. You find similar in areas with a lot of private schools offering bursaries.

very few schools are truly comps until 18 though, most are selective at 16 even if not before, or only cater to the lower levels, not all abilities. (I do hate it when schools that aren’t selective at 11 call themselves comps when they only cater for the top 25% post 16.)

Let's say we achieve equality of provision. Money is funnelled into education. Every secondary school can be standardised in terms of size to make it viable (say, 1500 or 2000 pupils). Each school gets sports fields, swimming pools, the ability to offer every subject under the sun in combinations of GCSEs, A-levels, Btec, T levels etc etc. Can't have separate colleges as they are too selective (needing good GCSEs) and specialist and anyway education needs to go to 18 now. Each school is resourced with SEND departments, 1-1 support for those who need it, mental health and counselling departments, career counselling departments and university coaching, extracurricular activities free for all as otherwise some would be more privileged than others.

Is this what the end game looks like for those who want "equality" of provision for all? It's basically a private school facility, but for everyone, with lots of extra subjects and services added. Actually more than that, where absolutely every single potential need is catered for under one roof, otherwise it would be unequal and someone's needs would lose out, which would be unfair. Leaving aside the billions and billions needed to make this happen in the hypothetical - even if we achieve this, there would STILL be "bad" schools. Equality of provision still will not have equality of outcome as there are massive differences in abilities and the cohort/intake is everything. The best facilities in the world can still result in "bad" schools with poorer outcomes than others.

Are you sure that a raw measure of outcome is what makes a school ‘bad’?

Surely what makes a school
good or bad is progress, not raw outcome?

A school that takes in children predicted to get 3d in GCSE and they get 5s is a better school than one which selects children who are predicted 8s and they get 7s, Despite the fact that the first school has poorer raw out ones, it is a better school.

(Apologies both for simplistic example and for typos)

The reality is that no school is the same as another in terms of intake and outcome.

I would see properly comprehensive schooling as being the fairest option - equality of opportunity within a geographical area - and am all for banning the rest. You can't really get over the geography without introducing a load of convoluted and unhelpful interventions.

There are some really fantastic community comprehensive secondary schools out there. Mixed intake with varied outcomes but which give the students the chance to progress to the best of their abilities. They are not all streamed. (Eg My DC go to a comp where only Maths is streamed. I believe this is increasingly common)

At the end of the day education has so much more to do with parental input and aspiration than anything else. Early years support for new parents is where the investment really needs to be to make things fairer.

@SurroundSoundLol , agree, with the exception that even privates don't offer such utopia

@cantkeepawayforever agree as well and I believe there is such measure of progress, however, it will be devastating for the kids who have potential to reach 8s and 9s to be in the setting where majority are only capable of 3s and 5s. It's bad both for these high potential kids and society - unless it's the objective to become poorly educated low achieving equality.

When people talk about kids from disadvantaged backgrounds getting poorer educational outcomes it's better to look at reasons why their backgrounds disadvantaged - it's not the school which is the reason.

All true, but no 4 is the one I personally find quite sad. The outcomes can be the same in terms of qualifications but state schools mostly teach to the test whereas grammar and private don’t so the actual education is much more thorough in the latter and so generally is enthusiasm for the subject.

Also the case that many parents of SEN kids will think twice about a very selective school.

DD is severely dyslexic and ADHD and has extremely high CAT scores.

Having been at a super-selective grammar myself, and DH was a scholarship kid at a very selective indie, we chose not to put DD into that system even though her CAT scores would be what you would expect to see for entry to pretty much any super-selective. No regrets, would not have been a good fit for her at all.

But looking back at my school there were lots of kids who today would have officially diagnosed ADD, ASD, mild SpLds.

And even today there are still lots of kids who don't get a diagnosis till university or beyond as they mask, at a cost, well enough to cope.

They would be far better off addressing the reasons why many parents feel the need to "cheat the system" or buy houses in catchment areas of "good schools" rather than faffing about with catchments.

Schools where lots of parents who live in the catchment choose to send their children to neighbouring schools rather than the local school should be given more funding, more support with behaviour management, more support with managing the school and ensuring that those places are not toxic workplaces, those schools might need more robust learning mentor and student support funding, help with managing problematic parents and more support services in school for children with chaotic home lives.

We all have a school in our area where many people who live in catchment won't send their children. These schools need to be able to approach the LA or Govt for more financial support to address falling roll numbers.

I'd say that is unusual.

DD's comp stream the year group and then set for every single subject bar PSHE and PE.

I would say that, in general, it is not the academic attainment/ potential of other pupils in a school with a difficult catchment that affects the quality of education / experience provided.

It is all the things that cone along with the catchment. The high levels of poverty, poor housing, poor food, levels of addiction and crime and violence, family breakdown and dysfunction including abuse, poor employment options, high levels of SEN, low levels of parental education etc etc. In the increasing absence of other support serviced, school have to deal with all of these for their pupils.

It is not funding for schools directly that will improve this. Funding for healthcare, social services, policing, housing, family support workers, transport, to entice new employers into the area etc etc.

The main admissions change I would make is for every school in an area to be required to admit the average level of SEN and Pupil Premium children for that area, and for there to be a cap (like the class size cap) on the number of such pupils any school should have. So for example, if a district council has 4 pr 5 secondary schools and average PP of 25% and SEN of 15%, every school must admit 25% and 15% (supported by free school transport) and no school could be required to go above say 30% and 17%. This would both dilute the effect of some schools having to cope with disproportionate numbers and make sure that all schools have somewhat more equal cohorts.

@Morph22010

.How old are you that free school meals weren’t a thing? I got free school meals in primary and secondary and I’m in my 50s

This was 1980s - maybe they existed but it wasn't something you were aware of if you didn't get them? We definitely had students who were from lower socioeconomic areas. They generally did better academically than the handful we had from the local prep schools. Natural ability rather than being coached to pass 11+.

Free school meals have been around since the second world war. (Earlier for visibly malnourished children.)

Nutritional standards for them have varied, however! My mum, reared on FSM and the luxuries of free milk and orange juice during the war, is very significantly taller than her parents, who had earlier Depression era versions.

@cantkeepawayforever

I didn't realise that. My Mum would definitely have been eligible had they been available. But she didn't get anything. She did get into grammar school but had to leave at 16 to go to work to support younger siblings. I think that nowadays she would have been supported more to stay in education.

I think one of the issues has always been with stigma and the need to apply. Many of those eligible may miss out, and will have missed out in the past, if they are not willing to - or unable to - apply. As a child, we went home to lunch rather than my parents admit that FSM could have been a possibility. Especially in a grammar school, where there may well have been very few FSM children, it is possible that a family may have avoided applying to avoid declaring their poverty so visibly.

Schools were not always particularly sensitive or discreet in indicating who was having a free meal that day!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01967-9

Here is an interesting and very recent study that shows that non cognitive genetics may play a significant part in academic success, the older the child is.
So a bright child from a poor and chaotic household may have inherited chaos/non plodder/non emotional regulatory genes too, inability to stick with things, be organised etc. - over and above just environmental influences that come out of deprivation.
The bright child with motivated parents who gets them to school and encourages them to study and sets routines from an early age may have even genetically passed on the tendency to do so.
It takes far more than children from chaotic households to learn alongside than those from rich stable households. Lefty thinking hopes for a cheap way of osmosis by learning alongside. It doesn’t work in reality, nor does it for SEN. Far more cash and attention/structure is required. Barbalsingh, for example, is labelled a conservative with a little c, but a lot of her thinking is compensating by introducing the structure and respect some children from a chaotic background lack. Whilst it offends the leftie adult to segregate kids according to ability and background, it may actually be in their best interests to do so.