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 think the OP is right but sadly the people who will be affected most are the poorest and hence the least able to effect change.

Where I live, we have outstanding primary and secondary schools that push the house prices up by £100k simply as the money is “safe” in the house value.

If school catchments for secondary school were random allocation within a 3 mile radius with no transport (unless blue badge/SEN) and safe cycling we’d probably have a healthier population with greater social diversity.

But that's not popular.

I don't think changing catchments would work but I agree the current system is unfair. It could be put in place where schools are close together, so pupils are pooled and then allocated via ballot.

A few other things that could be done. Firstly stop any donations from parents or if there are the school loses that amount in pupil funding. Leafy MC areas are full of parents throwing money at their schools to improve facilities etc. Also doing the 'leg up' work in offering work placements, carers advice etc. This, imo, is as bad if not worse for society as a whole than private schools (remember ps parents pay twice as they don't take a state school place).

Schools in deprived areas to have much more funding for additional support resources and smaller classes. Again imo the biggest divide is parental input (along with ability to afford extras like tutoring). This would mitigate some of this.

What's laughable is all the people running their hands in glee at the VAT in ps fees. However they are also the ones that don't admit their own privilege in buying into areas where schools are leafy NC, buying in tutors, buying in any advantage they can.

This VAT charge is going to have much broader consequences than people realise. If people want levelling up then do it properly.

The real solution OP, is that we just need better schools overall. That way, the disparity between different socio/economic areas Will hopefully shrink.

Just to remind you though, the children who attend outstanding schools don't all become Solicitors and Dr's. What you do as a parent makes a child's success.

I am on the other side of the education fence and real feel as though most of secondary education is just teaching minute pockets of knowledge around ridiculous behaviour, obscene amounts of bureaucracy for staff and churning out facts to pass exams. Our education system is quite weak and changing the catchment process is the absolute least of our worries.

I do hear and understand your concerns though. To echo PP, children can receive a quality education in other ways now- online private schools, homeschooling etc.

If you don't like the system, OP, you can find other ways. We have been made to believe that what we all grew up with is what our kids should endure as well. It's just not true!

The way to deal with that is put additional resources into schools targeted at the pupils you claim to have concerns about.

Not to completely disrupt the system so everyone is driving round in circles.

I’m not affected by the VAT policy. But I do think it was a policy of hatred that will not raise much money at all. It didn’t have much resistance as it didn’t impact most people. It has covered up the real, most disgraceful inequality - which is between some state schools and other state schools. Even within the same town. Near me, there are 2 primaries. One filled with the kids of doctors and lawyers in very expensicve houses. The other filled with kids who live in the substantially cheaper housing. No prizes for guessing which is the best school in the entire county. And yes, if things were “fair”, admissions would be randomised between these two schools. But people think by taxing the private school people, that we have taken some steps towards fairness. No. Richer people who might have gone private in the area near me will move into the catchment of the lovely primary. Inequality remains, but we pretended we took a swipe at it with private VAT. What we actually did is to take a swipe at the sector in general.

There is more flexibility with places, see my previous post. Only in exceptional circumstances would children not be able to go to their chosen school. Distance would not factor into that decision at all. At least that's how it works in my area.

But it wouldn’t bring equality. The divide would just show in a different way.

When I was at secondary school, my dad moved to the other side of town from my school. School was about a 10 minute walk from my mam’s house. Door to door from my dad’s, allowing for traffic it was about 30 minutes. But he could very rarely drive me. Without him it was 2-3 buses, and a walk. It was 90 minutes, sometimes more. It meant that I was leaving for school before many of classmates had even woken up for the day. They were finished homework, or at extracurriculars, or just getting chance to wind down, before I’d even walked through the door. I was exhausted.

You’d have the children who's parents could drive or afford to pay for direct transport, and then you’d have the children who’s parents couldn’t. The ‘wealthier’ children/parents would be inconvenienced. The ‘poorer’ children would be knackered, with less time/energy for their studies and anything else. It’s just different, but equally awful divide.

You don’t need to remove catchments, why not just increase them by a multiple of two/three so that they overlap - which would introduce a degree of lottery?

If you read my post above, they kept changing the catchment areas here (for whatever reason) and it simply does not work in practice. It resulted in chaos and inconvenience; I was not working at the time but I was taking a course and trying to juggle children at three different schools in three different directions plus myself meant fraught mornings and again afternoons. At least the oldest could take herself off to the egalitarian (only!) comprehensive school (in another direction!).

Schools in deprived areas to have much more funding for additional support resources and smaller classes. Again imo the biggest divide is parental input (along with ability to afford extras like tutoring). This would mitigate some of this.

There is no 'IMO' about this, research shows it to be correct. Parental engagement has a huge impact. Schools need additional resources for the pupils identified as not fulfilling potential.

That would be utterly bloody ridiculous!! We live in a small(ish) town with one school. The outlying villages (all within 2 miles) have their own village school. It'd be utterly SHIT to be allocated a place at one of the village schools. This would mean HAVING to drive (no busses) - awful for the environment, awful for families with no car, awful waste of time... our local school is a few minutes walk. Even if there were busses to the outlying villages... what a waste of bloody time!! How to fit work/ life round that?! It would also mean kids not going to school with the local kids they grow up with. Stuff like this is super important in small towns and villages like where I live because there is a huge sense of belonging and community.

Utterly ridiculous, the reason its by distance is because many less privileged people (poor, disabled/carer children, children in care etc...) cannot drive, afford taxis/busses, juggle multiple school drop offs etc... so it greatly increases the chance of those children that are most vunerable getting access to an education.

It's nothing to do with 'prestige' or 'name' which is something chased by the middle classes to elevate their station higher.

What your suggesting would screw people with zero other options (which are the people Labor fight for) and benefit no one really except one of two lucky random mid-privilaged people.

travel provided can just mean a bus pass though. Where I live, which is similar to most places in the uk that aren’t London, there is no cross county travel so to travel to a school four miles away you’d have to get an hours bus into the city and then an hours bus back out, same again at night

@GreenPeasandMint you do realise that in vast areas of the country schools are far more than 3 miles apart? My dc went to our nearest secondary school which was 5 miles away. The next nearest after that was an additional 5 miles, or 11 miles in a different direction.

We now live in a town with one secondary school. There is another school about 3 miles away but only accessible from us via a dual carriageway so not suitable for walking or cycling.

I used to live in a village at the boundary of the county. It had a secondary school, and there was also a school just over the boundary in the next county. So in theory that would work, except the next county had a bizarre three tier system of middle schools (ages 9 - 13) and upper schools (age 14 -18) whereas our county had the standard 2 tier system

OP, they could just give pupils eligible for pupil premium priority the same as looked after children and SEND. All three groups have significantly lower outcomes than others so should all get priority (imo).

Our local primary is an outstanding ofsted school (10 years ago it wasn’t) it’s catchment is in the middle of a large council housing estate and with a small mix of privately owned homes.

Its catchment area is high pupil premium, many English as a second language and high SEN - has a fantastic support for SEN pupils.

It’s outstanding because it has a good Head teacher, low turnover of staff. She clamps down on holidays in term time - education for the children attending is a priority with the right support, If you apply to the school you as a parent expected to follow its rules around uniform, to attendance & homework etc.

Uniform is a polo tshirt and shorts/skirts/joggers for lower years all supermarket shopped. Unbranded black trainers/shoes.

It was turned around because the funding was available as it was rated so low by ofsted in the past, had a fantastic leadership put in place. Parents knew if their children attended they had to be in school and they need to support that.

It should be that investing in the schools rather than fiddling around the issues like house prices /catchment/ lottery - spend the money on getting the schools to improve and the support they need rather than wasting resources funding alternatives Ideas.

Educational privilege doesn't lie in going to school in a leafy suburb. It's in having parents who love and support you to meet your potential.

You can fuck around with schools all you like but the result will largely be the same - kids with parents who care will do better.

I live in an expensive part of the country where birth rates are plummeting because people can't afford to have kids.

As a result most schools are massively undersubscribed which has resulted in a no catchment situation. It's bloody chaos with people driving past 5 schools to ferry their darlings to their preferred school. Terrible for the environment.

Incorrect, schools have to pass on the 20% VAT, that's the law. What some may be able to do is to reduce fees slightly from VAT being reclaimed however fees pay for teacher + staff wages and pensions. Less money from fees = less money for wages etc. Most indy schools aren't Eton so don't have a big surplus.
In addition, any savings from reclaiming VAT will be eaten up by business rate increase.
Stop believing Labour propaganda about indy schools being greedy etc. Some probably are but most aren't. We are already seeing teacher redundancies etc and this damages the local economy as indy schools tend to be large local employers, especially in rural areas.
Literally noone outside of Labour thinks that this policy is a good idea. Lib Dems oppose it, Greens don't support it and numerous papers have now blown holes in the maths.
The UK will be the only country in Europe to tax education, what a great legacy!

I can't see how this would work honestly. Our nearest secondary is two miles away. The next two nearest are six miles away and we are rural with bad public transport.

Our nearest is a good school but they are all good as we in a money area ( we don't have lots of money btw) but with lots of social housing around all of these schools.

I don't have skin in the game of catchments any more as my school kids have ehcps so get first dibs anyway now.

But of course people who just might be been able to afford private might move closer to the best state schools. It always been that way. Like tutoring your kids for 11+

It's almost like having a good job shouldn't entitle you to a good house, a good school. What next? No car or holidays? Why boover getting your kids a good education then? Surely you don't want them to do better than everyone else and have better opportunities? God forbid!

I grew up in a very deprived area. No car, no drive, no holidays, shit school. I went to uni. I worked nights while studying all day to keep my car on road to get to uni. I want better for my kids. I feel like doing better is not what most people want any more.

I'm in a rural country, a lot of schools have a lottery system for entry. You get free transport to the closest one as none of them are in walking distance. When you apply you just apply to the ones you can get your kid to.

@Momentumummy fundamentally whilst there are people/parents who earn more than others you will never have a level playing field because parents will always buy advantage for their kids. Whether that's private school or buying a house in catchment of best state school or paying for private tutoring.
Instead you should be lobbying Labour to increase funding for state schools so that kids in the NE and Midlands get the same quality of education as those in London! Make all state schools fantastic and then there will be less jockeying for them.

The entity this really helps is the government - just like with the right to choose, so now they just have to make a place available somewhere - leaving some families trying to get children to 3 different schools at the same time.

Completely removing catchments helps no-one - how do you decide who gets to go to a school with no catchments at all? Lottery? Waiting lists?

Ideally, for plenty of reasons, kids should go to school close to home.

How will it help a family in poverty to also have to transport a child to a distant school to make people feel better about the diversity of their school? I lived rurally, and let me tell you, and hour's commute each way to school and back (for secondary), plus being that same distance from any school friends and afterschool clubs is no joke.

This isn't america, schools aren't paid for from property taxes, all schools (in theory) have the same resources, and the difference is the resources of the families that use them. The solution is to raise families out of poverty, not turn school places into some dystopian lottery draw.

Lottery for school place? What a stupid and uneconomical idea to have kids travelling to schools further afield when there is one on their doorstep.

House prices aren't high around good schools because of the school- it's that nice areas with high house prices have families with more money, more parental involvement in education, and more academic parents so their children are higher achievers and conversely the local school is full of children that do well because of their background, not the school per se. This then has a roll on effect on the reputation of the school and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Schools with a reputation for poor performance tend to be in poor areas as lower income families generally have less value for education, behaviour is poor because they are less engaged with school, therefore the school struggles to perform well despite having some equally good teachers- but then they struggle to attract staff because of the reputation and more difficult pupils.

As for scrapping grammars- well they are one way that lower income families living out of the catchment can gain a place at a higher achieving school than their local comp. The grammars in my area are the only ones which have pupils travelling long journeys to them- some as far as 40 miles away gain places.