Given the large amount of threads about admissions, how would you change the current system to make it fair for all?

[itsmeitsmeolord]

Or do you think that would be an impossible task?

The catchment area for dd's secondary ed consists of two schools which are both classed as failing.
We are doing 11+, doing a couple of tests for state schools out of catchment and as a last resort will have to consider private ed.

It is highly unlikely that dd would get an offer for anywhere other than one of the two failing schools.
As a parent I want my child to go to a school that seems to care about its' pupils, I'm not looking for massively high results but would like to see that able pupils reach their full potential and less able students are not written off.

How do you think we could fix the system so that all children have a chnace of a decent education that will encourage them whatever their abilities and allow children to be educated fairly locally thus being a part of their local community?

I think good leadership is key, and that it should not be OK for a school to have low results just because it's in a poor area. A school near us went into special measures a year or 2 ago, very poor area, OFSTED sacked all the governors & senior management & brought in their own team. In one year the 5GCSEs went from under 20% to over 40%, the kids were no different than those from the year before. OFSTED needs to step sooner I'd say.

Since when did every child have an identical education? That has never been what the comprehensive system is about and I do not see my children as having an identical education as they progress through schools.

Also, just how 'different' does each child (or parent) need his of her education to be? Do we really have no clear idea of standards to aim for?

Actual GCSE results went up? Or GCSE and GCSE equivalents?

I'd be cynical too. All statistics need to be looked into very carrefully

All schools report GCSEs and GCSE equivalents, and considering the intake I imagine even the 20% included a reasonable amount of non-academic subjects / BTECS.

Bottom line is that 40% of kids came away with maths & english GCSEs plus at least 3 others (or equivalent!), the absolute minimum required for futher education or a job that doesn't involve asking if you want fries with that...

My point was that under 20% should not be considered acceptable even if the school is in a very poor / rough area, as it doesn't have to be that way.

A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS:

1. Pour money into schools in poor areas. Attract best teachers as pay will be better.

2 No selection.

1. Ensure catchment areas take in a mixture of deprived areas and wealthy areas

1. Provide buses to ensure it is easy to travel if you have to.

1. You should not have to travel more than x miles to school. Human rights - right to family life.

I would get a task force.

Take it into the best schools which may or may not be private.

And then copy every thing they did.

A school near my old house regularly went into Special Measures. Its catchment was the town centre and another low income area so the poorest catchement in the area. It was constantly threatened with closure (and has since closed) so there was no investement in the building and staff were leaving.This went on for at least 15 years.

When they went into special measures they were given extra money. That money was then used (very effectivly) to raise results (extra staff etc). When they were out of SM they would then lose the staff and results would fall again. It was so clear but no one ever did anything about it.

I visited a few time professionally and the atmosphere was really friendly and a nice place to be.

Barefoot - How would you copy the fact that most of the kids came from financially secure families that value educatuion?

drosophila,

They are already doing 1 and 2.

3, 4, and 5 are mutually exclusive, surely?

I think everyone is missing the elephant in the room.

The problem develops before the children arrive in school. All schools can do is damage control. You need to tackle the problem before the children are even born.

One of the saddest things I have ever read was with the Baby P case. A commentator said that if he had lived, he would have turned into a tearaway with an Asbo. They could well have been right.

Financial poverty only has a small impact on educational outcome.

No not doing 1 and 2. You do get a bit extra if your social deprivation is high but I suggest this should way more as schools in SM get.

There still is lots of selection about. You still have grammar schools and schools in London take kids from 9 different bands according to their test results (Wandsworth and Lambeth anyway) They try and balance it by taking from each of the bands but some schools only take from he top bands.

3, 4 and 5 are random thoughts and not connected.

If the system being operated means kids have to travel then you should provide transport. I would prefer that kids did not travel too far.

If you could work out a catchment area that had both wealthy and poor and kept the kids within easy travel of school that would be good. I think it is possible in London which is such a patchwork quilt of deprivation and wealth all close to each other. Not easy in different tyoes of towns though.

I think financial stability can make a difference:

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100205/text/100205w0013.htm

www.suttontrust.com/reports/Sutton_Trust_Cognitive_Report.pdf

You rescue them from it. Poor children are not stupid children.

Blueberry is wrong. Schools can turn around a child's life, but they don't seem to try sometimes. Consider a child from a home with poorly educated parents who are overworked and not interested, for example.

The child's school will rely on those parents to do the spadework with reading and times tables. They set the child up for failure with homework which there'll be no help with, supervision of or encouragement to complete, leading to reprimands, disappointment and an early sense of failure. The teachers from the first term will learn to reduce their expectations of the child, and the child's expectations of him or herself will correspondingly reduce.

Small class sizes, more TAs, a focussed curriculum, an ending of dependance on the parents.

I hate that excuse. Schools with the kind of demographic you are thinking of have been turned around by efficient and focussed leadership.

"dependence"

"dependence"

I like your idea of reducing the reliance on parents. My schooling was very much what went on at school was what mattered but now what goes on in the home is paramount. I suppose there is no money though for smaller class sizes etc. I was reading another piece of research from the Sutton Trust -

The findings in this report are unequivocal, and make for uncomfortable reading for parents and
policy makers alike. Whether expressed in terms of 'raw' gaps, in which the individual
characteristics of pupils are ignored, or conditional gaps (which take account of the social
background, ethnicity and prior attainment of pupils), the attainment of otherwise similar pupils in
deprived schools lags significantly behind those in the more advantaged schools. This is as much
the case for pupils from deprived backgrounds as it is for the most highly academically able
pupils.

I found that depressing.

That's why faith schools do so well, they've got all the fanatically driven parents who looked up the church they had to attend when they came off the pill.

A lot of other crap in the curriculum should be abandoned so that excellence in reading and maths can be pursued without parental help.

agree with barefootinthepark. "Poor children are not stupid children". David Starkey came from a poor background and his mother was a cleaner. I know many PhDs who came from poor disadvantaged backgrounds. What is needed is good schools with good teachers. I agree with barefootinthepark that the trend to depend on parents to help with reading and maths will only disadvantage certain children further. We pay our taxes and should expect the schools to be able to deliver a decent education without reliance on parental input.

The schools I know do not rely on homework for the teaching to be done. Maybe we have very different experiences here.

Abandon a lot of the other crap in the curriculum - agreed. Yes. Let's be a bit more forceful about wanting our children to learn academic skills and knowledge and learn them well.

blueberry, schools can't tackle the problems bewfore children are born. I'm not sure what you are suggesting.

Agree with Pointydog, although i live in the catchment for what is considered a deprived area the primary dd goes to is one of the top 50 in the country.

The school does give homework and expects it to be done but it also does a huge amount within the school. There are loads of enrichment programmes, homework club, literacy club, maths club, sports opportunities. The head is a really good leader, she knows every child, runs a very successful SEN dept and spends time in classes weekly.

I have disagreed with her over a couple of things but without her the school would not be half as good as it is.

We have an abundance of parents who are not perhaps as committed to their childs education as others but the recent ofsted made a lot of the fact that all of the children leave the school with better results than expected.

Unfortunately the shitey secondary schools then tend to undo all that good work....

If you want to have a system of parental choice then you need to be willing to spend money to achieve it. Specifically you need to be willing to pay for at least some vacant places in schools. In logic, choice only has meaning if there are at least two schools either of which your child could get into.

In fact, choice only has meaning if you have a choice between two schools both of which are good enough!

These two points explain why there is so little parental choice!

A change of head/leadership team can dramatically turnaround an indifferent school, but that's not the whole answer to improving standards in all schools so that there are no 'sink' schools left. The government seems to be unwilling to tackle the issue of slack parenting and unsupportive parents. Strong leadership and a fabulous ethos of hard work and behaviour are for nought if the parents are too unwilling/ignorant to support it. Mixing up school catchment areas and imposing a 'proper' social mix in all schools is not the way to go either. Middle class parents won't stand for their children to become part of some social experiment, and talking heads are being naive if they think they can tap into middle class mojo to force improvements in poor schools in poorer areas if middle class children are forced to attend them. I aso don't see why those parents who have the wherewithal to move to areas where the good schools are should be penalised either. When did it become fashionable to despise parents of nay social class who value good education and want the best for their children? What kind of parent is going to want to see their child's future being sacrificed for somebody else's idea of 'fair play'? The answer is more schools with different kinds of emphasis which offer different kinds of educational experience. At the moment, he only choice those parents who cannot pay have is a crude "Good" or "failing", or secular or faith because the same national curriculum is on offer in all.

My solution would be for a greater variety of schools to be available to suit all kinds of kids. Idealistic I know, but there are less academic kids who would do better in a school where top GCSE results are not the only priority, and the very brightest kids need schools with good G&T provision so they get the stimulation and stretching they need. I believe in horses for courses and less government interference in schools.

The answer has got to be same standard of school / funding / facilities / curriculum options and entrance criteria.

What we have in my area are single sex schools, mixed schools of different sizes, different facilities and curriculum options as they are specialist in different subjects. Here it is specifically arts / sports / science.

If you choose one that fits your child and it is over subscribed, you don't get in, child gets placed at the only other school that can have him/her because of the single sex status and they end up in a system that doesn't offer a curriculum structure or subjects that your child is interested in. How are they supposed to make that work for the next 6 years?

The moving house is such a joke, how has this not been addressed? In my view renting a house close to your school of choice is the same as giving a false address.

You have to be able to compare like for like. Only then will all this madness stop. It won't happen overnight either.

The grammars don't help by giving out results early so people can play the CAF form. I don't mind selection per se but I have seen people put children through a battery of tests I know they are incapable of passing. Then you have the parents who flounce off and remortgage their house so they can go the indy route.

Well, I'm witnessing some interesting family dynamics this year. Those who sent 1st child private can't afford it for numbers 2 and 3 - guess where they're going? Couple more years and bingo! new threads about favoured siblings and estranged adult relationships.