Article on Toby Young's west london free school - I don't understand admissions

[PollyParanoia]

Ok article is here from yesterday's standard.
I do find all this stuff about "we want a school with high standards" a bit strange - is there anyone head or parent who actively wants a crap one?
But my main question is one of admissions. It says that the site is 3 miles from Toby Young's house. Presumably that would mean that his four children wouldn't get in if it's done on catchment. Is this the case? If true, it seems strangely admirable and altruistic of him to be doing all this hard work. I suppose I should be applauding his philanthropy rather than assuming he wants an education he can't afford to pay for...

Ooh, horrid. And a primary too...
Thanks, it's nice to know we are not alone.

I do genuinely think it must be a lot harder without the 'insider' knowledge that it isn't the hell-hole of kids running riot with guns and knives that is imagined. Dh and I have seen so many children from various backgrounds (including from similar to our own) succeeding, enjoying school and having a wide group of friends. We are utterly convinced therefore that the positives outweigh the negatives.

I find it really weird that the vast majority of Daily Mail readers must send their kids to state schools and yet their portrayal is so negative. I do think that a lot of the media have a vested interest in this because so many opinion formers go private. In the street of aforementioned primary live two writers for a well known left-leaning paper. Neither of them used the state school...

What is confusing is the 'state school' supporters fall into several 'camps'.

There are those that believe that everything is fine and it only needs for (middle class) parents to be more positive about state education. (Adair? ).

There are those who are happy to list the failings - but blame: the remaining state selectives, faith schools, private schools or whatever for these failings.

Some believe more mixed ability teaching is the solution and others that streaming is the best method of dealing with different levels of ability.

Some people see state education as a tool for ensuring a more equal society, others as a means to enable social mobility.

However - The Sutton Trust have found social mobility has decreased and state schools are increasingly polarised by social class. IMO these are the real issues - not gossip about knifes and drugs.

I think the state system is 'fine' but if I was in charge of Education in this country, there would be a massive and radical overhaul .

RE social class, I would not dispute their findings but having taught in London (sometimes v different from elsewhere?) I'd say that I didn't really see the 'polarisation of the classes' - lots of children from various backgrounds going on to university for example.

On reflection, perhaps there is more of this in the nice Outer London school I am teaching in now - haven't seen in detail friendship groups though. The dc will be going to schools in Inner London, anyway.

I just see state education as the 'norm' tbh.

PS I blame the government's obsession with league tables and point-scoring with the 'failings'. We've lost sight of the purpose and value of education - it's not all about bits of paper with a number/letter on.

What has Toby said about class sizes? Will his be smaller than average? Pupil to teacher ratios etc?

I don't think the state system is perfect - it's flawed. But I don't think it has to be. If social mobility is decreasing, there could be any number of reasons for this - not least the more affluent "choosing" their way out of the system with their wallets.

Agree, successive governments of all colours have a disappointing obsession with league tables. Sadly, these cannot now be uninvented. If they were, people would get access to the data and produce their own unofficial ones anyway. And the anecdotal reputation of some schools being "better" would persist for a whole generation or more, anyway.

Social mobility decreasing IMO has quite a lot to do with the fact that in the post WWII period there was a massive expansion in the number of professional and white collar jobs. That expansion had to stop somewhere.

There's something in that, maktaitai.

In my city the "middle-classes" had always lived in certain areas up to the 1980s - certain postcodes, with certain "good" schools, would just be the automatic home of people with any kind of managerial or professional job.

That's changed - it's had to, because there simply isn't the housing stock in these "middle-class" postcodes to accommodate everyone who wishes to consider themselves middle-class and to send their children to a "good" school.

And not everyone in a professional job can afford the houses in these postcodes. In 1994, when I first moved here, two young teachers would have had a joint income of about £25k, enabling them to buy a first house in a "desirable" area for a mortgage the standard three times that amount at £75-80k. These days, the same teachers' income is about double that, but the same house costs about four or five times that.

By maktaitai Thu 24-Jun-10 11:41:00

"Social mobility decreasing IMO has quite a lot to do with the fact that in the post WWII period there was a massive expansion in the number of professional and white collar jobs. That expansion had to stop somewhere."

We have had massive investment in health, education and other public services over the last 12 years - that must have created many 'middle class' jobs.

Also, if someone is bright enough to be, say, a lawyer, then, that should be a career option for them, regardless of social class.

jackstar, you're right, but AFAIK, isn't social mobility measured by children being in a different SE class from their parents? Well, in 1970 apparently 70% of the country defined themselves as middle class (I was when I heard this on a documentary but it was a bald statement with no qualification). That self-definition has got to have changed hugely since then, and IMO more of that change will have happened between say 1970 and 1990 than from 1990 to 2010. But I take your point.

shit! I cmopletely ruined my own post - 70% deinfed themselves as WORKING class in 1970.

What I really don't understand is that those who consider themselves supporters of state education ( I'm not sure who wouldn't be, to be honest) seem so intransigent in the face of something new.

You say you agree it neds change and is flawed, and yet when someone tries to effect a change, you react against it.

For exapmle. Adair seems to be saying that inclusive comprehensives are a good thing. That there are few problems with them , and that some of those problems can actually benefit children by making them tolerant/hardier etc.
But if someone disagrees and says, they think schools should be like X, you don't seem to want to even countenance that that could be true, or to let them try.

Why not let them? Then they might get what they want, and you would still egt what you want.

I share your view Litchick. And, as Toby Young is only trying to deliver the original vision for 'comprehensive' schools (i.e widening access to a 'Grammar' calibre education) you'd think he'd have universal support.

Litchick, I would say I'm more open to a wider range of options in education than I used to be (getting older/wiser or just slacker? who can say) but an inclusive comprehensive in an area where there are lots of selective schools seems likely to look different from an inclusive comprehensive in an area where it's the only local school. It's that pesky free choice, i don't know Hence I think at least some of the motivation for asking, what will the admissions for the west London free school be? In my view we live in systems/webs/ communities and an action in one area of the system has an impact on the rest of it.

I really hope that the impact of this action will be a good one.

Litchick, I'm not sure I understand your point? I have said I hope Toby Young's school is a success. I am concerned about the privatisation of the education system (so have reservations about acadamies run by Mcdonalds) but I absolutely believe the right leadership team can 'get it right'. I just want to make sure that all children are welcome there.

I think Litchick you make a good point that it's easier to scoff at attempts to do something than to applaud them. But I do want to know what you feel would be a fair and workable admissions code for such a school?

The Sutton Trust have recently found a lottery to be the fairest admissions system (and it appears that TY agrees with this).

Anything else is open to 'fixing' or wealth leverage IMO.

A lottery would be a disaster in a city or large borough. Imagine the traffic chaos and the disruption to communities. NOBODY would be able to walk to school any more.

Part of the reason we chose the local village school for our children was so that they could go to the same school as the children up the street and over the road - these children are now their friends, they play at each other's houses after school, they walk up to school together, we parents help each other out with taking and fetching if someone has an early start or a late finish at work.

These community links are invaluable. A lottery would totally destroy them.

UQD - for more rural areas - the proposal seems to be based on the distance from the child to the school - rather than school to child IYSWIM. So a child should get the school nearest to them (if that's their choice). Not sure how this effects social mix.

There is reasonable public transport in most cities. At 11+ dc's should be able to get to school themselves.

I'm not a particular advocate of lottery admission - I just think it's the least bad option for 'fairly' allocating scarce school places. Anything else is just fudging the 'comprehensive school model'.

I expect there is reasonable public transport in most cities - but that's not a good reason to expect children, even 11+, to get two buses across a city to a school where none of their friends go, when there is a perfectly good school within walking distance.

But that's not for you to decide UQD. If the parents and pupil want to travel to a particular free school then they should be able to apply.

Why are you so insistent on imposing what you want and think is best for your DC on everyone else?

The law is very clear that it is a parent's responsibility to educate his child how they see fit. They should have the choice ( within reasonable parameters) as to how best to do that.

What has been happening in recent years thanks to GB and Ed Balls, is that this responsibility is being eroded and the state are taking over. All state schools have become increasingly homogenous and the NC being narrowly imposed form central office.
There ahve been increasing attacks on independent schools and home edders to try to bring them on message.

I see free schools as being about adressing the balance and placing the decsion making process back with parents once more.

Is that such a bad thing?

I'm not "intent on imposing" anything. I am intent on having things imposed on me.

UqD - if you want places allocated on distance from school - then you have to accept 'selection by parental affluence' as a reality of our school system. In that case the fix has to be 'supply side' - opening up new schools in areas of need or very heavy investment in existing failing schools (the original academy program).