Primary school admissions - MNHQ needs your thoughts!

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

We've been asked (in advance of primary school places allocation announcements in England, Wales and NI next week) for MNers' thoughts on the current systems for allocating primary places - so as ever we thought we'd come to you for your insights.

What do you think about how your LA allocates places? Have you found the process stressful? Do you think the difficulty/stress varies widely across the nation - and if so, which locations are particularly difficult and which are relatively stress-free? If you're in Scotland, where the system is different, do you think it works well (or not?) Would you support a change to the allocation system - and if so, how would you like to see it changed?

Any thoughts welcome. Best of luck to anyone waiting to hear about their child's place.

I'm Herts and rule 3 allows siblings to dominate. Last year I think it was 48 out of 60 places went to siblings. A bulge class was allocated but the future looks grim, especially for the families that are more than 800 metres away from both schools. Loads of out of area sibs due to a couple of lean years. But then that's just us. Each town/village is different as this thread has proved!

I am slightly skeptical about the summer-born thing, but I would certainly support exibility for ththose children with an EDD in one school year and a DOB in another - eg due Oct 11, born Aug 11 and due to start this September, but also due Aug 11, born September 1 to start in Sept 16. I can think of at least one child who starts this September at 5 who could comfortably have spent all this year in Reception (socially and intellectually).

Where I live there is no catchment area, you can send your child to any of the 6 schools in this area and be guaranteed a place at that school (England). It is how it has always worked.

Marjorie - Is that an actual guarantee? I would be very surprised if so (and would love to hear where it is!). It sounds like all the local schools just have capacity in the number of places, so choice becomes a reality. If every person put down the same school of the six, presumably they wouldn't all be accommodated and the other five schools not run a reception class?

Sweetie, plenty of faith schools have 50% of their intake on faith without the issues you state. The big problem with that is that the other 50% of places go to siblings of children admitted under faith criteria, so the school gets to claim it's being 'inclusive' while still practising social selection.

You also claimed that faith schools perform better and it's 'for a reason'. That's not quite true. Faith schools perform better when they select based on faith. That is, faith schools that aren't oversubscribed don't perform better.

And yes, there is a good reason. CofE and RC congregations are disproportionately middle class compared to their surrounding populations, and those who fulfil the criteria have parents who are organised, committed and stable enough to jump through the right hoops. Children from more chaotic homes, or where parents have moved a lot, children who are generally less advantaged are underrepresented at these schools.

Parental involvement and support is a good indicator of children's attainment, as is parental education. Given faith schools are cherry picking children of parents who tend to be better educated and more actively involved, it is unsurprising that the children (and therefore the schools) perform better.

Don't those people of faith who back faith-based admissions struggle with the idea that the churches aren't fulfilling their ethos of service to the poorest and most disadvantaged?

Even with the sibling rule though, you have to get the first child in to 'dominate' the allocations in later years. And that's assuming that the younger siblings do get in on the basis of a sibling place, some don't.

I don't know what the answer is. I do think it would be fairer to abolish faith schools completely, and then do the criteria something like this:

1. LAC and SEN
2. catchment children
3. non catchment siblings
4. non catchment

As I said before, siblings do not need to be at the same school. Yes it's easier, but to say it's not physically possible to have children at different schools is ridiculous, I managed it. It makes much more sense for all children to go to their closest school with a place, which may be different to their sibling, than it does for children to be allocated all over the place because siblings living miles away displace non siblings closer to the school.

The ability to get siblings to different schools depends on the individual schools and the circumstances of the parent(s). (And I say that as someone who currently has 3 children at 3 different schools).

Many of the local primary schools no longer have before or after school care. Those were shut down a few years ago.

The rule is that children can't be left in the playground before a certain time, usually 10 minutes before the final bell goes. If the two schools are more than 10 minutes apart and you don't have anyone else to take the second child, someone is going to be late.

I think there needs to be more done to raise awareness of how the system works. As has been mentioned upthread, too many people still believe the myths like "If I only put one school down, they'll have to give me a place".

Others miss the notifications because they don't have a child in a pre-school setting when the booklets are handed out and the posters in the library are only A4-sized. Others are new to the country and have limited ability to understand the language or the system. It's often the most vulnerable who are left to deal with the problems caused by late or non-existent applications.

You can lift share- this is what I did with my two. Neighbours, friends, other parents etc. You can use before and after school care if it's available. You can use a childminder. One parent can drop off one and one the other en route to work. If the schools are close enough you could probably drop off one and then the other- DH could do that when he drove them to school. Older ones can walk/cycle by themselves- my DS did that in year 6. Often if the only available school place is miles away the LA will organise a taxi, the child doesn't need to be accompanied. I'm not saying it's an easy option, but it's doable, and the flip side is local children are forced out to give way to siblings out of catchment. There needs to be a balance.

Why do we have the age cut-off date at end August? Why not make the cut-off date end March? That way no child has to start school within days or weeks of turning 4. The youngest child in the year would be 4 1/2, and premmies would be closer to their adjusted age when they started, altogether more likely to be school-ready. The oldest children in the class would be 5 1/2, which would not disadvantage them. Of course nurseries and pre-schools would have to provide more differentiation for some of the older children.

yes, yes to JassyRadlett's post.

Round here, the CofE and RC schools are disproportionately white British and MC. They are attached to particular churches. So even if you're a devout Christian, if your preference is to worship at one of the other churches that has a gospel choir, or where a large number of other Nigerians go, or has a Priest who speaks Polish, then you miss out to the congregation of St Cuthbert's (including the sharp-elbowed parents who 'rediscover' or 'find' their religion when they have children).

And conveniently seem less gripped by the faith they discovered once they've secured the schools place.

I honestly don't see why any places should be of children whose parents practise a particular faith. Educating any and all children is exactly what the churches should be trying to achieve.

If faith was taken out of schools completely, vicars and other leaders of the local churches could step up and offer after school classes for those parents who so can't imagine a non-faith education for their children. It would be interesting to see what the take up was.

Perhaps the question of whether you are considered under the sibling or distance/catchment rule should depend on whether you can prove 1. you have been renting the whole time and 2. you were served with an eviction notice on your 'in catchment' property.

I think that there should be more of an effort to inform parents about the process well in advance.

I'm thinking mostly of those parents of a first/only child who haven't had any real contact with the system previously. I remember from sorting out DD's school many years ago how bewildered I felt in trying to get the right information. We ended up simply putting in an application for the catchment school. none of this making a few choices and hoping.

It didn't even occur to us that you might want to select a school other than the catchment, so it was lucky for us that the school was good for DD, and later for DS. so this summer will mark the end of 11 years associating with this primary school.

I agree about not knowing anything with the first! If you are not in the loop, where do you find stuff out?
This is where GPs' registers need to be used. Every year LAs could get surgeries to send in the amount of pre-schoolers and their ages that they have on their books. This way, booklets could be sent to out to relevant families detailing the application process.
Of more importance, would be the amount of 2 year olds that will need a school place in 2 years time. It's not until the applications are in that the LA realises they are short of school places for that year! Ridiculous.

Tremolo- I don't think you could get into value judgments. What if you lost your job and your house was repossessed? What if you were bereaved or divorced? What if you had to move to a bigger house so a disabled sibling could have a ground floor room? It would get very subjective very fast.

Yay to DocHollywood above regarding faith schools. Good idea imho and I say that as a card carrying Catholic of a child in a faith school.

My child got a place at an oversubscribed faith school simply because we moved 170 miles during his Reception year and it was the only local school that had a space at that point. More to the point I was not Cathokic and nor was DS. He is now and so am I simply because he wanted to go to church and do his Holy Communion with some friends. I did the adult Catholic course at that point as I wanted to know more about it. I got co-opted into the church choir rapidly and love religious music generally so enjoyed this. Four years on and the religion ship has well and truly sailed for DS but now he HAS to attend church as I am in the choir haha.

Recently the other Catholic school in the town failed their OFSTED (okay about four/five years ago) and there was panic by the Catholic Eductaion people as pressure came onto the school to become an Academy. They didn't want that as apparently that would mean they would have to reserve 50% of spaces for non Catholic children. Personally I would not have been upset to see this, our school already has a large number of non Catholic children in any case including a 5% Muslim intake.

I find it ridiculous tnat a non Catholic child in a house right by the school gate can be refused a place and end up traipsing a mile away to another school. Madness,

You'd think the Christian thing to do would be to provide a high quality education to anyone, regardless of their parents' faith (or lack thereof), wouldn't you.

Where I grew up, the catholic schools dod all the religion for the parents (and may well still do). Your P3 teacher would do all the prep for your first communion and the event would take place in school time (with proud parents turning up to the church to watch). In P7 the school would see you confirmed. I suspect the numbers of children actually doing either would drastically fall if it were up to parents to make sure children went to Sunday school etc to be prepared. I didn't realise that English catholic schools didn't do this until DH (who went to catholic school in England) laughed at me about it.

Penguins Yes, of course, you're right - there is just no good way to sort that problem out that I can see.

I agree with this one:

1. LAC and SEN
2. catchment children
3. non catchment siblings
4. non catchment

In our area it a joke how many well off parents suddenly buy a local (i.e. practically next to the school) run down house and pretend to live there for a few months, renting it out as soon as the place is achieved and the coast is clear. Always make me laugh when you see a range rover and a merc outside a run down 2 bed semi. Our local schools are very good and although the primary intake year for my son was low by the end of year 6 it was full as so many kids had transferred out of private schools.

I know Tremolo. The reality is that the system would only get better with more slack - at the moment there are so few spare places.

^^TiggyTape "Many parents with no concerns about maturity or readiness would also tactically delay purely for the advantage it would bring their child to be the oldest in the whole year. A lot of parents actively want that even where no delay or problems exist"

The thing is though, compulsory school age is what it is, the term after your 5th Birthday. Of course if starting our children at compulsory school age in reception is going to give our child an 'advantage' then we are going to take it. We want what is going to be in our child's best interests, don't we? It shouldn't matter whether or not a parent has 'concerns about maturity or readiness', it's about a point in law, primary legislation; compulsory school age. It is our absolute right to start our children at CSAge. You have said yourself it will give children an advantage, that's what we want isn't it...to allow all our children the best start possible (under law)?!

I don't find comparisons between the overcrowded SE of England, and Scotland, to be particularly helpful, tbh. Can you imagine how large schools would have to become if they had to accommodate every Reception child in their catchment? Even if schools have the odd extra classroom, they don't have the space to expand indefinitely, and it would be a crazy waste of resources to do so. Scotland doesn't have the same population density and so does not share the same challenges. Some posters have already alluded to growing problems in areas where the population is growing there - I think that parts of Edinburgh have had some problems with catchments.
The issue is always going to be one of how to ration places when demand exceeds supply. In Hampshire in catchment siblings come before other catchment children, with out of catchment siblings following behind. There's still some cars driving to local schools here - but nobody will have dared move away while still needing places for some years now.

Also find all the references to 'catchments' confusing as no schools in the two areas I have looked in to have catchments. They select on distance, so the 'catchment' effectively changes each year depending on the number of applicants.