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...

'The research found that one reason why there are less poor children in good schools was they just didn't apply to the better schools.'

Bit like saying there are less poor people who own Mercedes because they just don't buy them. They don't apply because they know they can't get in or can't go there even if they did.

I'll see if I can find the report. But I think they blamed the admissions processes for being too confusing. The implication was more poor children would get into better schools if more applied.

Yep. More more poor people would drive Mercedes if they bought them!

Unlocking the Gates This is it.

One of their recommendations is 'Fair Banding' but I can't see how another layer of complication (including an entry test) would increase the number of applicants from poorer homes. I'd have thought a straight lottery would be be better.

i have to hide this thread as my brain throbs when i see the title

I must admit, I came back to the Uk having spent my formative years being brought up abroad. I couldn't believe the admissions process here and it took me a while to understand how it worked.

I thought I understood it now till I saw someone on a thread talking about a secondary modern! We only have comprehensives here but now seem to have academies too ffs! No wonder people don't get it!

If he'd been able to secure a building in Acton, there's no way he'd be doing the lottery for children from outside his area.It would all be, 'This is a local school for local children.' How does he get away with it?

Because this government is rather obviously only going to gun for the self-starters, self-motivated and wealthy.

I read the Barnardo's report someone posted earlier, and I thought 'Good luck!' This is possibly the worst government you could wish for if you were at the bottom of life's heap, trying to scramble up.

However, and I feel the point must be made, there are a certain number of people towards the bottom of the heap who have chosen to do nothing about their circumstances except whinge vociferously about the inequality of the system that doesn't allow them to send their DC to whichever school suits.

I could be called 'Alright, jack' in that we, as a family, positioned ourselves to get the DCs into the best performing comp in our county. It is leafy and middle class but the school does have DCs on FSM, if nothing like the national average; so those 'places' are there for those willing to make the moves necessary. I was interested in the Barnardoes report stating 'Some parents are prepared to go to extreme measures such as moving house (along with mentioning enthusiastic church attendance!) to get their DC into chosen schools. Well, moving house isn't really such an extreme thing to do, is it?

I know the above is all a bit off the OP but I think we do have to remember this government will, albeit in a covert way, do what's necessary to permit schools like Toby's to get off the ground as what many 'poor schools' lack is any suggestion of interest from its parents, let alone the fanaticism of Toby et al. This can often be the missing ingredient, the 3rd leg of the stool that the Japanese, for example, recognise is crucial for good educational outcomes: child, teacher, parent, all working together towards the same goals. I can't with every will in the world see how the DC with the parent who cannot be arsed to learn how to engage with the secondary school selection/admissions process stands a chance in the increasingly high pressured environment of modern secondary education.

Does anyone know what Toby and friends are doing to let people know that they can apply for places school places?

ampere - you make some excellent points (pleased someone read my Banardos link).

But I think you misunderstand the Tories. They are all for people moving up from the bottom of the heap.

Certainly for Cameron and Gove - enabling social mobility is seen as the best thing they can do for the poorest in society. You could judge some of their methods and ideas as naive - but that is their intention.

A good example is EMA. I think that the main reason Gove axed it, was he judged it as having failed to promote social mobility. He looked at the number of children from low income families who got into Oxbridge - saw it was pitifully low - and pronounced EMA a failure.

Yet, most research judges EMA's success by the number of pupils who stayed in FE (often in vocational courses) until 18. One report even claims EMA's a success because it lowers crime levels!!

Maybe social mobility just means different things to different people. To Tories it's Oxbridge; to Labour it's a vocational course that leads to legal employment.

Sorry - have gone right off topic!

Puffling - anyone who has registered interest in the school over the last yr (which can easily be done through the website) was then contacted about applications, leaflets (in several languages) were mailed out, hard to reach communities were visited, the head teachers of over 30 local primary schools were briefed & asked to tell their yr 6 parents, open days were held in hammersmith and in Ealing, press releases were made and covered in the local press, plus the website explains it all.

And next year admissions will be handled by the local authority as with other schools.

The West London Free School Website

Online and downloadable application forms for year 6.

Toby Young talks a lot in TV debates.

I have mixed feelings about his speil

It will be interesting to see how it turns out

Avocadoes.Is the school widely advertised in the area? Would most people have known that they could register interest?

DP thinks he's doing it for himself.
I think he's doing it for his children.
I wonder what the primary motivation is. I also got the feeling when watching the documentary that his philosophy for the school was at odds with that of the rest of the steering group. He seemd more confused which is odd as it's his pet project.I wonder if there'll be in fighting, people dropping out once it's up and running

I don't think for a moment Gove axed EMA because he thought it wasn't encouraging enough social mobility! he did it for the same reason he does everything else because he's a c*nt because he doesn't see the point of spending money on poor kids!

Puffling if you were a Y6 parent in the area i think it would be hard to avoid knowing about it. We have had mailshots through the door, in bookbags, articles in the (free) local press - even if you were consciously avoiding the subject in the playground i can't think it would be news. As to whether it has translated into widespread registering of interest who can say...

'Well, moving house isn't really such an extreme thing to do, is it?'

Eh?

What if you're in a council house or renting? Moving house IS pretty extreme even if you are in a position to buy which many people are not.

And why should the quality of the school a CHILD goes to be directly related to the amount of money, effort and education of the PARENT???

There should be good schools which are accessible to ALL children regardless of their parents' wealth, religion or willingness to travel/lie/cheat/buy/move their way into education or lack of.

Hear hear 5 candles. Well said.

I haven't read this thread in full but my position on school admissions in England is that the position is an unholy mess and it's a great shame that we don't do what the rest of the developed world does, if I understand this correctly, namely have a system whereby most children go to their local school.

However, we don't and parents are left to fend for their own children, so hardly surprisingly, they put their own children's interests before those of society as a whole. We did. Our daughter was able to go to a good girls' comprehensive school but our son didn't get into any of the good comprensive schools in our part of inner SE London so he goes to an independent school.

On that point, the city technology college less than a mile from our house changed to an academy the year our son was transferring from primary to secondary school. That meant a new admissions policy giving priority to families living nearest the school, for the first time in many years.

I happened to see a friend who worked at the primary school nearest this CTC/academy, shortly after the deadline for secondary transfer forms, and I said I supposed most families had put Aske's down as their first choice, as now for the first time they had a big advantage over everyone else. Oh no, she said, actually very few have applied. I was amazed, but on reflection I could see that there were still many barriers in the minds of parents who had always seen Aske's as not only unattainable for their children but also largely irrelevant.

My friend said that from conversations with parents they had decided not even to apply because they didn't believe that the written admissions policy would actually be applied (ie conspiracy theory - the school could say what it liked but in reality it would still be taking posh kids from further away); they didn't think that this exceptionally high-achieving school would be a good place for a child who wasn't a high flier; and they had difficulty getting their heads round having to fill in a supplementary application form, taking their child to the school for a banding test, etc etc.

Banding is standard in our area (hangover from the Inner London Education Authority) and I was often surprised by how difficult it was for people to accept that a banding test was not a pass/fail test like the 11+ - lots of parents I know hear the word 'test' and have a Pavlovian reaction that it must be something you either pass or fail.

Just as all the 'well-meaning' parents either:
realise that running a school is too complex or lose interest in the whole thing as their children have moved on,
the big boys waiting in the wings will pounce.

I fully expect to see all these FS being run by Ark, Capita, Religious HQ, etc in 5 years' time.

It's all in the plan to privatise education. Same with the unis when the Govt say they can no longer fund the fees up front.

That's my humble, and cynical opinion!

"And why should the quality of the school a CHILD goes to be directly related to the amount of money, effort and education of the PARENT???"

In the private education sector, it is a given that the quality of the school a CHILD goes to is directly related to the amount of money, effort and education of the PARENT.

We accept that without a whimper, don't we?

Regarding the admissions systems in other countries, I think one has to be sure one is measuring apples against apples. I believe that many countries have a system very similar to our old style of 11+ for all, pass = success, fail = just that, but that the middle classes do that modern thing of tutoring like crazy, like here! It's impossible to go 'out of catchment', like it was here 30 years ago, thus local schools reflect their communities. Schools in lower socio-economic areas tended to be more vocational as 'all that fancy O level stuff isn't/wasn't for the likes of us', and the leafy areas sport/ed the grammar schools.

The other thing is that we, as the English, don't want our school to be just 'good', it has to be better (than the others), otherwise where's the advantage to our kids? It's my belief that what's changed here from our old, 'local system' to the new is that misunderstood concept of 'preference' as it's miscalled 'choice'. The day that was introduced, the middle classes slipped into their running shoes and sharpened their elbows as they smelled an opportunity at 1000 yards. I bet you'd see all the other allegedly 'much better' systems go the same way if the chance to sway personal advantage was introduced!

Fwiw, outside of London which has its own, weird educational micro-climate, I believe most DCs do still go to their local school.

Finally, could it not be argued that maybe the DCs of those parents who fled, overawed and scared at the merest suggestion of the chance of 'bettering' their kids by even applying for Aske's might actually be better off not there?

I agree with that penultimate paragraph, Indefinite Leave! A government with a spine would recognise that it has a responsibility to level the playing field so that giving an good opportunity to one child doesn't mean depriving a child of less sharp-elbowed parents of his/her chance. They should all be able to go to good schools.

As for whether Aske's would have been a good school for children of average or below average academic ability - I don't know if you know our area (Lewisham) but I was interested to see that in 2010 Aske's GCSEs went down from 90something% getting 5+ A*-C incl Eng and Maths to 70something% - still very good for an Inner London school, but a massive drop all the same. According to a local blog, this was because of the change in admissions policy six years ago - the first cohort admitted under that was so unlike the ones the school had been getting that the staff were (allegedly) flummoxed, especially when it came to Maths. Maybe things have got better now.

Antepenultimate paragraph, actually!

No, I don't know Aske's at all, though what you've said about the GCSE results is interesting as it highlights another ishoo- that there seems to be this belief that putting a gang of under-achieving, socio-economically deprived DCs into a 'good' school in a leafy suburb will suddenly produce 'A's in those DCs, and therefore that school's excellent GCSE results won't fall. Well, surely a school is the staff and DCs actually in the school; it's not just 'a building'.

It always 'amuses' me when we hear the call for 'good schools' to expand, but surely a school is good because it contains a critical mass of school-ready, already appropriately educated 'to level', reasonably well disciplined DCs with committed, supportive parents; throw half the sink estate DCs at the school (I am using the term 'sink-estate' as lazy shorthand for the offspring of indolent, neglectful, benefit-relying parentage, here) and it will simply cease to be as 'good'. Sure, it may work wonders on value-adding, which is no bad thing, but it won't appeal to the sharp elbowed middle classes who have made the school 'good' if half the lessons are given over to teaching basic manners and good behaviour! And I don't think there's anyone here who doesn't recognise, possibly from bitter first hand experience, how it takes one little shit child from a suboptimal background to wreck a lesson! Even the Barnado's report muses on this- is the school good because its intake is 'good'? Chicken and egg?

The issues of admissions is FAR more complex than our government is trying to make out. The govt actually knows this which is why they are approving schools like Toby's- they know the school is likely to succeed purely because the intake will be the selected plus the DCs of parents interested and committed enough to actually get their DC's name put in the lottery.