Brighton votes to allocate secondary school places by lottery - good or bad?

[TheDullWitch]

Would you put your child's future down to pure chance because it's a fairer system?
here

You make good sense nearlythree.

Sometimes it's patronising to give people a leg up or to handicap the people who are already doing well. People come to expect society to owe them a living and a chance so won't bother to work for it or will rejoice in a feeling of victimhood because they perceive themselves to have been denied a leg up.

Don't want to shot you down in flames at all NearlyThree. I couldn't agree with you more - the focus should definitely have been on improving the secondary moderns and having possibility of swapping schools etc. I can't see them going back to selection but at least it would be upfront instead of all the 'back-door' selection which goes on in faith schools. However, I would be very worried if we went back to the bad old days when there weren't enough grammar shools for girls with the effect that girls had to perform significantly better in their 11+ exams than boys in order to get a place.It would be interesting though that if there were co-educational selection whether the percentage of girls in grammar schools would be higher than boys.

I do understand why some people in Brighton are annoyed, what with councillors being replaced at the last minute etc before the vote, but can I just point out that, as someone who lives in the area that has been added into the catchment for the good schools, they are also our nearest schools! Prior to this, if you lived in Queens Park/Hanover/Elm Grove you really had no access to the schools nearest to you.

Agree majormoo that the current system in Brighton wasn't fair.However the way that it has been spun in the national press (especially The Independent yesterday) is that the lottery system is a victory for social justice. However the people from the poorest estates are excluded from applying to the popular schools.
I have found this whole debate interesting in that it has made me aware that journalists often fail to present an accurate picture of a news event.

majormoo the next problem will be how to fit all the children in the new catchment area into the school.

I haven't seen the Independent article, but DH and I were discussing similar stuff last night. The way the Lottery plans have been presented just doesn't seem to reflect the reality of how it is supposedly going to work. But neither of us work or have any experience in the media, so we are obviously naive about these things!!