bbc news tonight - parents lying to get into schools made me wonder...

[jollygumbear]

if you rent your house out and then rent yourself in catchment and live there for a year does that make the application for the school illegal?

i won't say "wrong" as that's another thread as its all about personal opinion!

thanks

Xenia-are you for real?

Howling at the idea that that the best thing a mother can do for her child is to work all the hours humanly possible and spend as much time as possible AWAY from your child.

Actually on second thoughts............

if every child in this country had to go to their catchment school or pay, the education system would be much better. If you think of the effort that some parents put into getting their children in the right state schools. Imagine that effort channeled into improving the standard of a local schools. The education system will never change and provide a decent education until more pressure is put on the government. Anyone cheating the system is basically endorsing a system that prevents social mobility.

And the big X is back

My cup overfloweth

Being unusually immoderate though. I don't think that women should class themselves as failures if they don't earn enough for their sprogs to go to NLC

On that basis 98% of women would be failures

And imagine if all women did earn enough to send their offspring to go to NLC

The queues would go up the M1 all the way to Leeds. Murder would be committed

It's just not a workable vision

Presumably Xenia would quite like some bright women to go into teaching so they can teach children of the calibre of her dd at NLC?

Don't know if this has been said (ran out of steam reading the thread) but faith schools are not open to anyone of that faith, irrespective of class, cash etc etc. Not around here anyway.

Here you have to pracice the religion and have enough money to buy a really expensive house next door to the school.

Non religious you only have to buy a really expensive house next door to the school.

And as for hardly anyone suddenly cynically discovering religion - 90% of people I know have suddenly become avid churchgoers.

The whole system is cock-eyed.

Xenia. Off the top of my head,

Henrietta Barnett.
QE Boys.

An excellent girls school and an excellent boys school both within striking distance of NLC. Both state, admittedly both selective, but then so is NLC.

Xenia does kinda have a point though. The world isn't fair, and you have to work hard to get anywhere.

Lotteries will just make children think there's no point in working hard to get into a good school, because where they end up will be random anyway. So why bother studying?

Why not make university places a lottery too and we can all stop thinking and learning completely! Who cares if we end up with a society where no-one is capable of actually doing the job they're qualified for?

The whole 'everyone should be equal and have the same things' ideology that seems to be taking over the country is killing all ambition, work ethic, pride in actually working for somthing and achieving it.

After all, it's already practiaclly impossible to be fired now, so why bother acutally working hard at your job?

Add to that school allocation being a lottery, and all incentive to achieve is gone.

That rant over, I'm shocked and amazed at how many have said their DCs can't get into their local school. In South Africa, we all went to our local high school, no question about it. Each high school had a defined set of local primary feeder schools, so once you lived in an area you knew exactly which primary and high school you would go to (though I hear that's changed now - but that's another story).

Having to travel huge distances when another school is within walking distance is crazy! How on earth can your catchment school not be your local one?! That's beyond messed up!

Sorry, it's way past my bedtime, have just realised my post doesn't make much sense since academic achievement doesn't have much to do with entry for most state secondaries.

Just ignore me - it's usually the best plan!

"Lotteries will just make children think there's no point in working hard to get into a good school, because where they end up will be random anyway. So why bother studying?"

Eh? Children don't have to work hard to get into good schools (aside from the selective ones). To get into a good school a child's parents need to (a) move house (b) get the appropriate religion or (c) happen to live near a good one/be of the right religious denomination anyway. What on earth is that supposed to be teaching the children about studying?

ah - x posts

It's not the schools themselves that are the problem, but the school culture. I have a friend who visits some secondary schools in Swindon and she is shocked how lovely new schools have been trashed inside.

If the culture of the pupils is one of apathy towards learning and violence it is often fed through to them by their parents/homelife. It is not the fault of the school.

A brilliant head and supporting staff can do wonders with school culture. But there can be a lot of resentment for authority with parents who did not have a good school experience.

Swearing, smoking, anti social behaviour in the class and out that is even intimidating for adult visitors means that the teachers who work in such places deserve admiration.

It would be cruel to send your child to a state school which has such shockingly intimidating 'street culture' if they did not fit in. A school is an important social environment, it's not just about education.

It is cheaper to send a child to Eton than to a youth offender's institution or prison. As that annoys me so much I think the key is to change 'sink' schools altogether, give parents school vouchers and if the local authority cannot provide your child with a school with a good OFSTED then they should pay you (plus make transport arrangements) to go elsewhere.

Then the teachers (paid a fortune and specially trained) can concentrate on the children who are left in these 'sink' schools (by parents who don't care about their education and there are lots) and give these children more one on one care,with smaller class sizes it could be more like a private school, especially if they improved their afterschool activities etc.

Standards would definitely improve if the head/staff gain a good rapport with these remaining children and their parents and then because of the better results, more people would be encouraged to go there.

Win win, no?

Dusty, I was not suggesting that only the middle classes want good schools, I am simply saying that churches (I am generalising, of course) to be attended by the middle classes. If this means that they are also more likely to attend faith schools, then one reason faith schools are good might be because of the socio-economic background of families, not because of their faith itself.

In the county we live in, many village schools are C of E and the village is full of very expensive houses. Again, a generalisation but middle class families tend to be governors, on the PTA and generally support the school and drive up standards. And go to church.

QE Boys in Barnet though is super-selective - unlike other selectives in our area like Watford Grammar there is no admission based on catchment at all. You have to pass one test to get within the first 500, then the second to get a place. It's not uncommon for boys at ds1's private prep to try and fail for a place at QE Boys then get into a selective independent like Habs.

My problem with schools like this (and I include the selective independents in this) is the difficulty of actually assessing the quality of teaching there - they damn well should get great results given the hoops children have to jump through to get a place there!

MM777 fair points, though the strngth of faith schools if often more about parental input than parental income.

Re house prices, they follow all good schools don't they, not the other way round (if that makes sense)

Edam, care to share a link to these "research articles"? All my children are at faith schools and no donations have ever been requested at application stage. Re interviewingt, you are incorrect. Only the London Oratory interviewed parents and they no longer do so. Me thinks you are spreading rumours because you are opposed to faith schools, rather than making a reasoned arguement based on any evidence. If you have some tangible evidence of a school asking for a financial donation in order for a child to be given a place, let's see it then.

Hmm just thinking - the point really though is surely that ppl should not have to pay, lie, move address, attend church or have mega mortgage in order for their children to learn to read and write properly should they? The education system in the UK has beened dumbed down and I constantly interview job applicants, many of whom have masters degrees, who do not have basic grammar - they are unaware of the basic rules of grammar and cannot write a grammatically correct report or letter.

It seems that options for schools have become polarised between failing schools and pushy parent schools. There seems to be nothing in between.

MM7777 I don't know if the class thing is true of C of E schools, but from experience would say that Catholic schools tend to be less middle class. Which is why I've heard people in the nice NW London suburb where I live describing my old school (mixed, non-selective on academic grounds, Catholic school about 5 miles up the road) as rough. Although it's in a nice Herts town, it takes people from Bucks to Wembley and so have a pretty mixed intake.

I think though the Catholic church has always been less middle class than the C of E (and the Oratory is very much an exception to this, as you might expect by its location). This might also explain why going to a faith school is not a guarantee of academic success - there tend to be other qualities of these schools that parents are after.

I am a churchgoer but am still undecided as to whether I want to send my kids to a Catholic school - but a problem I face here is that my local state secondary is now largely populated by kids bussed in from outside the borough as it became less successful / popular, so if I did what I think is the right thing to do and send DCs to the nearest school, most of their class mates will be coming from 5 miles away not our area.

banaskins I agree with you!

I was challenging xenia's "If you want lakes, class, accent and best exam results then you have to go private particularly if you also look at connections and self confidence. I don't thin you get any state school year after year beating North London Collegiate where one of mine went on A level results. The best schools not just academically are all in the private sector. State whether it's grammar, religious or whatever is always second best."

by pointing out that there were 2 state schools that did offer those things (possibly excepting the lakes ), within striking distance of the private school that she was talking about

Lakes?????

Obviously a school can't provide a proper education unless it has a lake.

Everyone knows that, surely

my dh went to a prep school that had a lake. we recently went to an old boys event where there was extensive reminiscing from some of the older old boys about the school and the general consensus was that the swimming lessons in the lake (without swimming trunks) were more for the benefit of the teachers than the boys. i suspect things have changed somewhat now but am still not convinced that a lake is necessarily an essential educational requirement.

God yes! Most Oxbridge colleges won't even look at an applicant if they haven't been educated next to a large body of water set in landscaped gardens. Not to mention decent employers.

My school had a lake

I am not a high powered executive

How do you work out which school's catchment area covers you, please? I have been working my way through nearby schools to try to find this out, but they don't have websites . Is there a cetral database of this stuff? Thank you!

Our council website says that you have to visit teh school and look at the map there.

Our council also produces a document each year saying whether all children in catchment got a place, if not what the furthest distance was, and if children outside catchment got a place what the furthest distance was for them, which is probably more useful if you have a lot of over/under subscribed schools around.