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.

engaged parents have significantly better outcomes than those with unengaged parent

The main issue is parental engagement: reading, healthy home environments, actively engaging with homework, and engaging with teachers. Unfortunately not every home in the UK has a parent like that. THAT is what needs to change.

I do not disagree on this too.

Some of my argument upthread, based on professional research, shows that, in summary, you don't have to bundle or group engaged parents in the same school to achieve good education outcome. On the contrary, it will do harm to have less engaged and disadvantaged family group together in a school.

I have a very similar approach - looked at 25 schools for DC2. Schools are vastly different in ethos, offerings, resources, demographics so in reality there is no such thing as one size fits all.

Assume they are all state schools? How would you make sure your DC get admitted if you find 1-2 of it in particular of interest to you?

Most engaged parents only look at their local schools, between 3-6 typically. However, if you have a child with SEN, then often you have no choice but to look at 20 plus schools, because these children are so failed in our current system.

Sure, it is possible, I agree. As long as the SEN you meant are not "grammar school high academic ability ' type of SEN mentioned upthread.

let's politely disagree with this.
They are as far from Scandi as it goes

It’s most complicated if you have a DC who is twice-exceptional. Often an overzealous primary teacher at some point will have told you to seek a diagnosis for autism or told you to maybe have them “assessed”. I would say at least 30 per cent of the boys in DS’ grammar were told that at some point by primary school, many parents did not go ahead with it, just chose the grammar and the boys have been fine. None of the statistics show this. If you have a gifted child you meet a lot of other parents in the same camp, with the same kind of stories. If you went to an elite uni yourself, then quite often half of your uni friends will tell you the same about their DCs. Yet, if you pick the right school for them and manage the teen years, they fly. In the wrong school, they burn out completely. And no, I don’t have any reports to prove this. It is anecdotal, but happening far too much now for me to ignore it.

Dh non negotiable for schools was that our dds could walk there. He had a vile time having an hourly commute on an unsupervised bus to his rural secondary it was like lord of the flies. He absolutely hated it. There was sexual abuse involved.

So am pretty horrified that the op wants to blithely inflict that pointlessly on the majority of pupils whose parents can’t / won’t send them private 🙄🙄 as a weird sort of social experiment. Most cities have mixed housing so the majority of the larger state schools will have a mixed demographic anyway ours definitely does.

Of course. Because SEN children shouldn’t be allowed to thrive like that, right?

There is a child at my DCs’ grammar who is highly autistic. So much so that I think they have the highest needs of any autistic child I’ve ever worked with. They are exceptionally bright, and have an amazing musical talent—so much so that they’ve had national recognition for it. They are thriving in grammar, and the other pupils in the school “get it”. This child would have been completely eaten alive at any of the comprehensives in which I taught.

Three local to where we live, all of which we would have got a place based on distance (nearest one is 45 minutes away)

Two feeders from DD's London primary (she stayed there and commuted when we moved out of London in Y1)

The rest (16) were across London and offered mainly music aptitude places but also language and drama aptitude places as well.

There were 6 private schools within the 27 that I visited. Mainly vocational schools.

I'm not sure I would call what I did a 'luxury'. DD's education was a priority for me, so I started thinking about it in Y4 and then did visits in Y5 and Y6. Huge amounts of information online.

I wasn't bothered about the school being nearby, or DD being with friends from primary and I knew she was highly likely to get offered aptitude places. I spent a lot of time on school websites and forums like mumsnet getting the info on the admissions requirements for every school so DD was prepped properly.

Every other parent in SE England is free to do what I did. It just takes a bit of time and forward planning.

That’s not what I meant. SEN and high aptitude are, of course, not mutually exclusive. However, not every high-aptitude SEN child is suitable for a grammar school environment. If you look upthread, someone used SEN (likely referring to a high ability to pass the 11-plus exam) as an example to justify the existence of grammar schools catering to 'SEN' students. But in reality, statistics show that the proportion of SEN students in grammar schools is very small compared to other comprehensive schools.

Oh but this is the main, fundamental difference - the socialists will always say the society/government know better and prevails and you must listen and obey while the liberals will always prioritise individual freedoms.

The proponents of socialist policies don't like Mao, Stalin and Kim to be brought in to the discussion (let alone Hitler whose policies were national-socialist), but they somehow forget that East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia were very much socialist countries, part of Warsaw Pact bloc. If people studied history better, they would have known how socialism looked like in reality, even without Mao. Education was not necessarily substandard, in many cases it was excellent as the times were different, but people had no choice whatsoever - everyone studied all subjects mandated by the government, no matter if the child was able to do that much or not, you just had to do what you were told to do. After uni, specialists were sent to distant areas to work for several years and you didn't have a choice where to go, it was decided by the government for you. It wasn't Gulag or Hongweibing but was pretty much routine everyday restrictions imposed on the individuals by the government.

I'm sure the MN socialists enjoyed the lockdowns as the epitome of their ideology of state protection aka oppression. The Tory were partying in the meantime as they don't subscribe to these concepts of collectivism 😁

This is from copilot or chatgpt?

And no, I don’t have any reports to prove this. It is anecdotal, but happening far too much now for me to ignore it.

Confirmation bias?

OMFG—just let parents choose what’s best for their children!

You sound like a pro-life MAGA supporter who wants a blanket ban on abortions, without listening to the nuances of medical professionals and women with their own circumstances. Why should we trust people to make their own decisions, when we can issue a blanket ban, eh?

Isn’t the solution more grammars that enables the most able pupils to still access excellent education? You could change the catchment of those schools and open the doors to the brightest kids.

I think Labour wants to shut the doors of those too don’t they?

MAGA supporter who wants a blanket ban on abortions, without listening to the nuances of medical professionals and women with their own circumstances

This sounds more like a staunch grammar school supporter who constantly ignores research evidence and statistics

No it is not confirmation bias, it just does not suit your narrative @Overturnedmum

Plus a lot of the US disagree with you anyway and there are these kind of schools in the US https://www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu/admissions/

Just because the UK refuses to define the gifted as having a special educational need, does not mean that other countries do not. In fact, I think it is quite an interesting academic debate. Both the twice-exceptional and the not quite twice-exceptional and the just profoundly gifted. Academics would not be writing about it if it were completely binary. .

Yep, let’s just issue a blanket ban on grammars without allowing for parental choice. MAGA!

Wow, you found a school that accepts students in the 99.9th percentile of IQ tests as a mainstream example? Impressive! I quote, ‘It is the first university public school in the nation for profoundly gifted (high IQ) students regardless of age of entry.’ Why not dig deeper and find the proportion of state exam schools in the entire USA that enroll children solely via exams before the age of 11?

And you use that to compare to a typical super-selective school, which only admits students through the 11+ exam and takes the top 10-20% of the applicant? Really?

MAke grammar Great Again?

@Overturnedmum - I am merely pointing out that the thinking is shifting. And if you know anything about the current academic research on gifted kids, you absolutely know that I am right. And perhaps this is why you are so desperate to get rid of grammar schools now, because you know that in a few years there will be Government impetus to reintroduce them, because it will be best practice, based on current research.

Only it lapsed anyway around the 70-80s 😂

They had lots of specialist schools for music, art and sports all over the country as well as a few maths boarding schools for exceptionally gifted so it looks like they were not completely against "unfairness" of different aptitudes and abilities.

@Araminta1003 I am merely pointing out that the thinking is shifting. And if you know anything about the current academic research on gifted kids, you absolutely know that I am right.

Sorry I absolutely don't think you are right. The thinking is shifting the other direction as far as I know. Maybe you can provide with more pointer on some creditable research for me to entertain?

Perhaps the success of these specialized schools is attributed to the fact that they don’t rely heavily on early selection exams at age 10.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1083932