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.

Grammar schools are not going to expand under labour. An increased influx of students from the private sector into the limited grammar school places would strengthen the argument for equal access to state schools. This would provide a solid tone for the government to completely abolish this outdated system.

@Overturnedmum so how did two new grammar annexes open in Sevenoaks in the last few years?! Due to popular demand. If there is a need to create more school places for ex private school
kids in the South East where will they be?

If the dustmen's children show academic aptitude and hard work, they will be recommended as well as the doctors' children....

That was true in theory but, unfortunately, that was not always true in reality....

@user149799568 - is that West Germany primarily? What about former East Germany? May the opposite have happened there? It sounds like the prejudices of a teacher could take hold in either direction where there is no scope to appeal or take an external exam as an alternative.

By law, no new grammar schools can be created without a change in legislation.

The Sevenoaks expansion in 2017 was not due to popular demand but because the government leader at that time wanted to set the tone for grammar schools. It was deemed an unpopular policy even within the Conservative government, and after a change in leadership, this idea was abandoned.

We all know the Labour government’s stance on grammar schools.

@Overturnedmum - it was by popular demand in Sevenoaks itself where since house prices have risen even more, relatively speaking. It’s clearly what those people did want. Two local grammars.

@Overturnedmum - there is no legislation preventing grammar schools to increase PAN to accommodate ex private school students, should they want more funding and more pupils and have the grounds etc

It’s quite clear that the minority parents who can afford tutoring want to live in expensive housing but want to opt out of private schooling in the area are keen to avoid having their children share classrooms with those on free school meals and other less privileged families. After all, they want to maintain such a pristine educational environment?

There is legislation to ban creation of new grammar spaces. The change on PAN need to approved under department of education. And under Labour government the increase PAN for grammar school won't happen, especially at the decline demand for secondary place in general going forward.

So if Bromley or Bexley council want to increase PAN in certain grammar schools after local consultation and with a Tory MP and council, you are trying to say they can’t? Because of the Labour Party. Sounds unlikely and undemocratic.

Your initial statement sounded more like "the doctors' children always get recommended, the dustmen's children don't" which is not true in reality. Injustices can happen anywhere, but generally there are no incentives in the system to discriminate. There is also no point to tutor to the test as happens here.

@Araminta1003 I think the concerns about implicit or explicit teacher biases in Gymnasia recommendations were better documented in the former West Germany, but I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question. Just because more papers were written about it doesn't necessarily mean that the problem was any worse.

Lots of the literature on this topic also reflects very similar arguments about the desirability of selective education and a high-stakes educational separation as the arguments about the 11+ here. I'm ambivalent about that question. I am clear that, if there are going to be high-stakes decisions made, I'd prefer that they be made on the basis of more "objective" and auditable criteria, less obviously susceptible to human prejudice. It seems that strong exam results can form the basis for successful appeals; in some sense the system, therefore, considers exam results as more informative than teacher recommendations. In the interest of fairness, I'd prefer an exam based system if selection and separation are going to be done.

To greatly, and probably overly, simplify, my understanding is that doctors' children had to prove that they were not suitable for university not to be recommended for gymnasium whereas dustmen's children had to prove that they were to get recommended. To the extent that was true, I don't like it.

BTW, I know that this issue has received a lot of attention over the decades and all governments have tried to remediate it. I don't know how relevant my caricature is today.

Increase PAN will change the funding agreement. They need to get approved by the Department of Education.

For London’s super-selective grammar schools, those who ultimately gain admission are not the ones with parents who vote for the local MP in the first place. I don’t think that’s how democracy is supposed to work.

@user149799568 - I agree with you. There is actually a headteacher right of appeal here too- school are given results before the parents.

@Overturnedmum - Outer London has the lowest rates of suspension in England and high educational achievement despite such low funding!!! If even more parents move to these areas and the demand is there, the DFE will have to create the secondary school places in the schools that have the grounds and capacity. If it’s grammar and the test results this September are much higher than in previous years, as currently widely predicted, then the DFE will have to consider PAN increase requests from
Outer London too. And they can’t just knock back on ideological Labour Party grounds, the laws the law and there will be judicial reviews.

In the interest of fairness, I'd prefer an exam based system if selection and separation are going to be done.

Only if the exam is conducted in a mature and sensible manner, without being influenced by various external factors. For example, if you prefer fiarness od democracy would you want to open elections to include 10-year-olds?

It’s better not to segregate based on such criteria, at that age, at all.

Low funding is only for the few grammars, Outter London has many more exampilfy good comprehensive school that shows why grammar schools are not needed.

Most importantly grammar school don't have space nor capacity. The extra funding wont go to selective schools. And outer London comprehensive have sufficient school space to accommodate the demand, thanks to birth rate decline.

@Ubertomusic

Germany had a strong industry though, and excellent vocational routes, so even the doctors' children might prefer to go to Realschule if they're more inclined towards industry, not classics.

I think this is where the problem lies - we're making all students do the same pathway & so some students are really disengaged.

I don't think people in the UK want technical & vocational schools though. It's really shortsighted as a country to not offer decent vocational courses. Some students would much prefer to learn some skills to go and do plumbing or hairdressing. Some trades are really well paid & should be taught sooner.

The mentality is very different, children get told off by strangers on the street if they don't behave and slack parenting is frowned upon etc etc. Anyway, everything is changing now as there are fewer children and schools have problems with massive buildings which creates different dynamics around towns, or at least I was told so by German friends who are teachers, in some cases for several generations. The economy is also suffering so there will be further changes inevitably. What we are discussing here is already history.

The private school brigade have submitted FOI requests to some Outer London councils showing no spaces in secondary so don’t get your hopes up too much. Same councils tend to have grammars.

People in the UK don't want technical and vocational routes because there is not much industry to go to afterwards, bar a few tech giants that do not need that much highly qualified staff. Plumbing and hairdressing is Hauptshule, Realschule is for highly qualified engineers for example who don't necessarily want to study three languages and classical civilisations etc in Gymnasium.

Anyway...

@Overturnedmum

You seem to contradict yourself - one minute students don't make any more progress in a grammar than in a comprehensive & then a bit later on you say that comprehensive school students do just as well. So why not leave the grammar schools as they are? I don't believe they get any extra funding.

Decent university places are being increasingly given to more comprehensive school students & those who are disadvantaged often get a contextual offer. So there is an element of levelling up.

I went to grammar school & many of my friends (some of whom went to pretty bad comprehensive schools) earn more than me.

I am wondering if you (or your DC) missed out on passing 11+. I never hear anyone in real life who is especially bothered about the issue.

@Ubertomusic

Yes I guess the Germans have a much stronger industrial base & I suppose there are decent jobs to go to which are well paid enough to live off.

The important thing about selective areas is not the achievements of the grammar school kids. of course they mostly do well. As do the kids in the top sets of comprehensive schools.!it's the impact, academically, socially and psychologically that their presence has on the secondary modern kids.

I don't disagree with you.

My preferred solution would be to have non-selective intake schools with setting for all "academic" subjects. This would require larger schools than is currently the norm, at least 300 students per year with at least a dozen classes for the subjects that all, or nearly all, students take (double these numbers would be better). That would allow more than one top set and more than one bottom set in the most popular subjects to facilitate timetabling. Students would be able to change sets at least every year, if not every term, with some provision to help the ones moving up a set, even if only a folder of additional worksheets to be done over the term breaks.

A school organized along these lines would provide some of the more homogeneous classrooms which make teaching easier. It would allow students to work at faster paces in some subjects and slower paces in others, as most appropriate for them. It would allow a more "diverse" student body, in academic achievement as well as family background than a selective school.

Schools like this would not eliminate the inequality in the system, perhaps not even reduce it. I have every confidence that the most academically ambitious and well resourced parents will continue to cluster around the perceived "best" schools, and that schools in poorer neighborhoods will, on average, achieve lower results.

Schools like this would not satisfy the fans of the super-selectives; their effective catchment areas would be, perhaps, 20,000-40,000 people if you had fixed, unique catchments, somewhat more if you allowed parental choice of schools. At any rate, far fewer than the millions who live in (sort of) commuting distance of Queen Elizabeth's School, or Henrietta Barnett.

And proponents of mixed-ability teaching would object to setting.