Sibling priority screwing over local kids

[SJ1987]

We missed out on getting in to our (extremely popular) local primary school. It’s an extremely good school, multiple ‘outstanding’ oftsteds, amazing pastoral/SEN provision. We live 0.38 miles and the max distance this year is 0.32 miles. The area we live in isn’t desirable for the amazing school. It would be considered rough by a lot of people.

Following a FOI request only 8/30 places went to children on distance criteria. 19 places went to siblings. Siblings are prioritised over distance.

We’ve submitted a further FOI request to clarify average and furthest sibling distance. But I know for a fact that kids attend the school from many miles away - often maybe having lived near the school before moving to ‘better’ places.

Are we able to challenge this? It seems grossly unfair that local kids are missing out to siblings who live in different towns. Is there a distance at which people are supposed to move schools if they move house? Or is this just the game when it comes to the best schools?

I move in some pretty awesome circles who definitely do care about education, my kids definitely do not go to a sink school.

Maybe I don't move in moneyed circles, but all I'm saying is the vast majority of people cannot afford to rent/mortgage their house and to also rent a flat near a good school at the same time.
There will be a miniscule percentage of people doing that although I agree with you if there are some areas (won't be many) where that is a problem maybe the local council should adjust the admission criteria.

It can’t be the case that “year after year, the majority of places go to siblings” or the number of first children getting into the school would be so low, year on year, that the sibling issue would eventually resolve itself.

In my experience (and as I said up thread, our nearest school had 21 siblings for a 30 PAN entry when my oldest applied), there are peaks and troughs - some years have more first / only children and some have more siblings, due to demographic quirks or the after effects of a bulge class as another poster mentioned. The years where 70-80% of Reception places go to siblings are talked about because they are unusual, and those who have first children due to start in those years are unlucky (and I have every sympathy for them). It can’t, however, be happening every single year as that’s impossible.

There will be much more of this now with VAT on privates.
Families which can't afford it anymore will still have sufficient funds to rent for a while to get the first child in and then move out. Especially if catchment area is rough and relatively cheap

@metellaestinatrio I agree with your logic and that’s why I am interested in the statistics (not because I am a nosy busy body implied up thread 🙄) It was around 2020ish the sibling intake exploded in our local school. Prior to then it had been a pretty static average distance of 0.5-0.6 miles with ~30-40% siblings. It then sharply jumped to ~60-70% siblings with a reduction in distance to ~0.3 miles and has been that way ever since. As you say it will eventually have to burn itself out if the first children just stop coming because the distance criteria drops so low and eventually all the siblings leave. But I have to say it’s been 3 or 4 years now and no real sign of the burn out yet!

Does that align with a lot of families moving in from more expensive areas due to WFH...?

But that still doesn't give schools elastic walls.

Your school must have entrance criteria (its a requirement). Does it put siblings top (after SEN and cared for) or catchment and what do they define as the tie breaker in the event of too many parish eligible children?

Or do the local authority have a plan in place to allocate an additional classroom for a population bulge even if the neighbouring parish has spaces?

Even in less densely populated areas where parish boundaries can be used there is normally a tie breaker comment allong the lines of "distance from the school, if the gap is less than 2m the choice is made randomly/coin toss". I've just checked several non religious parish based school areas and they all have distance from the school in there, just as is the norm in cities.

Unfortunately if that’s what your local system is it’s by the book.

You can contact your local council who deal with the admissions to complain, but it wouldn’t be any use to you (but could potentially help out others in the future).

We’re in “catchment” for two primary school, one is the standard local primary and other is a religious school.

For the local, catchment sibling get priority over other catchment kids, and only after all catchment kids are the out of catchment siblings prioritised.

For the religious, all siblings have priority and then other catchment kids.

It’s quite telling that in the local school about 30% of places go to siblings and the remaining places usually filled by in catchment non siblings, but in the religious school it’s about 75% siblings, with well over half of the siblings living out of catchment when there’s never been any out of catchment non siblings getting in (and both schools are very similar in attainment etc). People take advantage of the religious school admissions and move to the area to get in the school, then move away.

It’s shocking and only adds to resentment when local kids can’t get in the nearest school and people who milked the system do.

Parents who can afford £25k per year out of net income for school fees are a tiny percentage of the population where average family income is not a great deal more than that £25k.

Additionally schools who suspect this problem can and do investigate where people are genuinely living through the process. They have no shortage of complaints from parents making this assumption and plenty of specific accusations for the schools to follow up, but the numbers actually pulling this stunt are small compared to local parents' assumptions on the rumour mill.

If you remove the emotion and focus on actual numbers then barring siblings is far more likely to impact families who do not have the luxury of a secure roof and confidence that they can stay put. Families like @Lostrrack33 are far more likely to be affected by forced moves/split schools.

Funding isn't necessarily the problem. Research has shown that there is no link between school funding and performance in England. Some of the worst funded schools are amongst the best performers and vice versa.

I am not arguing that funding should not be increased - it should. But don't expect it to be a silver bullet that allows all schools to become good/outstanding.

I find it interesting that it's so difficult to come up with a system that is universally 'fair'. The Scottish/US/Australian is straightforward, but probably means house prices are affected by schools. In England/Wales you get this distance v siblings thing. In Ireland a lot of schools have age rather than distance as the decider (school starting age is more flexible, so you could be put off to the year after}, which to my mind also seems quite unfair in a way. In Belgium different schools can decide to weigh priority (as in who put the school as first choice} vs distance and in Brussels parents can do a language test to get priorty to Flemish schools.

It's impossible because it's a way of excluding children from the school that their parents want them to go to. So most who lose out, particularly if they lose out narrowly or have different DC in different schools or can't attend the school on their own road, will feel hard done by.

Fair is ambiguous.

Indeed. As we see time and again on here, for most parents "fair" means "my child gets a place at my first choice school".

Interestingly I read today that my borough (Waltham Forest) has been told they should not withhold places from siblings where the family has moved farther from the school:

Waltham Forest Council has been ordered to change its primary school admissions policies after being found by the government to have ‘indirectly discriminated’ against families on the grounds of race and age.
Under the current admissions policy, children could be made to attend a different school from their older siblings if their families had moved more than half-a-mile away from the school.
In its published decision, the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) stated that “Non-white British/non-white applicants are more likely to be in privately rented accommodation (without security of tenure), temporary housing, or otherwise less secure in their accommodation than white British applicants who are more likely to be owner-occupiers or accommodated in social housing with security of tenure.”
The adjudicator added that non-white families are consequently “more likely to have to change their accommodation and will have less choice as to the accommodation they move to”.
This means that the admissions criteria for community and voluntary controlled primary schools in Waltham Forest is currently in violation of the Schools Admissions Code due to “indirect discrimination on the grounds of race and age”.

Between my second and third child in area we live then there was a minor switch in priorities for primary places - so sibling in catchment stayed same then then they moved siblings outside catchment to below children in catchment area.

I think it was in response to so many moving in later years to avoid really bad secondary school and complaints like OP.

So interesting to read TheYearOfSmallThings comments about Waltham Forest Council though it would have been more than a mile move for better secondary school but I suspect the mile move would have affected more renters moving round area though no fault of their own - as most tried to stay in area because of schools - so I think that ruling fairly sensible though may add more complexity to admission process.

Wow that is interesting. Goes completely against what I’m saying I suppose! It’s clearly complex and probably highly area dependent, depending on home ownership, population demographics and quality of secondary schools. Home ownership levels pretty average here although house prices significantly lower than national average.

That's really interesting. The indirect discrimination angle hadn't occurred to me, but it's an important angle to consider.

Tbh even in Walthamstow it is affluent families moving from an owned flat to a nice owned house who will benefit most from this, assuming the process does change.

Possibly, although the adjudicator would have taken detailed information about demographics of children affected to make a decision, and to draw the conclusion about indirect discrimination.

My children went to school with lots of children whose families were in temporary accommodation. They often got told that they were being moved further out at very short notice. Bloody nightmare all round, with further to travel (and pay for adults) and no guarantee of school places in the new area, especially not in the same school for siblings. Also, no guarantee that you won't be moved again in a few months.

Some sort of stability and community is vital for those families.

Maybe this is just it. Maybe my LA feel this is genuinely is the fairest way (although I’d still like them to explain that). I have to say, transient population not through choice doesn’t seem to be a huge issue, but maybe it’s beyond what I realise.

But no matter what happens, there are always rich people in the wings waiting to abuse policies put in place to protect poor people.

I wouldn't call it abuse as such, just behaviour following policy.

I suppose so. I suppose if they can why shouldn’t they! More robust policies then I guess!

The issue is that local children don't get in to their local school, then those siblings end up also going to a further away school, in cars potentially. There are always circumstances. In our area during the bulge years, some years there were children who missed out due to siblings in older years getting the younger sibling in from when the previous number of applicants was lower, off waiting list when spaces became available meaning local children ended up 6 miles away. It has changed friendship groups because friends are further away. Where parents benefit from a low birth year, choose to move and continue to leave child at a school a couple of miles away then they should lose the benefit of being above catchment- the extenuating social, medical clause could/should be used where a family through disruption of tenancy etc are housed away from the area, particularly temporary housing, should be available as a route.

The problem is when people move out but keep their places and the people who move in next to the school can't get a place.
Perhaps people should lose their place if they move further than a designated distance or sibling rule doesn't apply to those who move.
Most people move because they want to not because they have to.

It may make your life complicated if you move and younger siblings can't go to the same school but then for the vast majority of people, the move wasn't forced. It was choice.
Perhaps part of that decision should include accepting younger siblings won't automatically get a priority place.

Yes fine. As long as you still live within a designated area.
The problem isn't siblings per se. It is people getting one child in the moving miles away and the younger siblings still getting priority.

It means the people who bought their house in the catchment can't get into the school.

The decision should be a calculation including both sibling and distance factors.

Yes. This