Schools which have intake very different from local population.

[agapanthii]

in Fiona Millar's guardian column today . So grammar schools, single sex schools, outstanding schools and rc schools are admitting pupils wildly different than their local populations and even Toby Young is saying this will make him change his admissions process. Surely he shouldn't even have a say - admissions should be centrally organised?

So in Brighton is transport provided to all kids if they're at a school over 3 miles from their home

If pupils are allocated to a school that is more than 3 miles away by the shortest walking route (2 miles up to the age of 8) the LA must provide free transport by law. That could be a bus or taxi, or a pass for public transport.

I'm in favour of lotteries within nominal catchments. Or a universal system that meant that if a child didn't get into their nearest school, they were given higher priority for their next nearest rather than being shut out of local education altogether.

We live in area where there is a huge shortage of school places. Our two nearest schools are faith schools with 50% of admissions prioritising CofE churchgoers. Often the other 50% is filled with younger siblings of children who previously qualified under the church criteria. We are not CofE (or religious at all). Our next nearest schools are too far away (600 metres) for us to have a chance of a place.

DS1 has just scraped a place at one of the faith schools as they had an unexpectedly low number of siblings this year. Most years we wouldn't have got in.

It's grim that I have to send him to a faith school, and equally grim that systemic religious discrimination against four year olds could have seen him allocated to a failing school a 30 minute drive away (the fate of a kid down the street whose parents are desperately pinning their hopes to waiting lists).

It's not at all surprising that the selection system distorts and breaks up communities by forcing children to be educated outside their local areas because they're not rich enough or don't pray to the right deity.

JassyRadlett I'm pretty agnostic, but it sounds like your issue is as much about lack of places generally as anything. We have a DC starting school this year in a town in the north-east and had a choice of three perfectly good schools all exactly the same distance from our house - two faith (RC / C of E), one non-faith. We went with one of the faith schools because of its friendly reputation, despite the fact some people are a bit snooty about the location (council estate) and we're not Catholic - almost half the families sending children there aren't even Christian let alone Catholic. To my knowledge none of the faith schools in our town wouldn't have space for a non-Christian family who put it as their first preference. Likewise no one would have far to go to attend a non-faith school. Other parts of the country could also have that level of choice if the government had gotten off its arse years ago and just built more schools in the right places - my understanding is that the growing squeeze on places was predicted well in advance and could have been prevented.

Sorry that should have read "pretty agnostic on faith schools"!

It's just utterly outrageous that in 2016, people of faith have a choice of a third more Tax payer funded schools than people without faith.

Apply the same principle to hospitals, and the sheer outrageousness becomes clear.

It's mad isn't it Bertrand. Being C of E is not a special need.