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 appreciate that Alice, not saying it shouldn't change at all, just responding to the posters suggesting school start between 5.5 and 6.5 for instance - from the perspective that that might be bad for the older ones. Maybe a 3 month shift I.e. Cut off date in June or possibly a choice (country wide!) for those born over the summer would work ok.

The current system is flawed in so many ways!
Why have children that have not reached CSA to start school? Why are there 4 years old sitting in classrooms?
Summerborns are discriminated against without being given a choice if start their children 1 year earlier or at CSA in reception.
A vast amount of summerborns are misdiagnosed as having SEN, which results in fewer resource being allocated to children that do have SEN or to the rest of the classroom.
This is a huge waste of money and a great injustice that starts at the very beginning of the process and that could easily be avoided by giving parents the rightful choice of deciding what is best for their own children.

My lad had a January start. It was perfect for him. He was a little older, a little more confident having been a "big boy" for the last term of preschool. He went into year r a term late and thrived.

It isn't so very long ago that most schools didn't have reception classes, school began at year 1, which is why that year is year 1.

When I went to school, we all began in the school year AFTER we turned 5, not the school year after we turned 4. There were no reception classes. That was 1970s.

When I first started teaching, most schools still didn't have state funded pre-school education of any kind. My parents lived in Gloucestershire, no state funded pre-school. I started teaching in East End of London, there was state subsidized nursery, pre-school and reception classes. Why? well because the borough had realised they had a problem when so many kids arrived at school with such poor 'pre-school' skills. (eg had never held a crayon/done any drawing; had never had a story read to them; had very poor vocab and speech; had never held a knife and fork etc) Add to that the high number of kids coming in with no English and they opened pre-school classes.

So the problem we have with summer borns is a newish one of our own making. Because most summer borns are fine starting school age 5+ as opposed to 4+.

(but year 1 in 1970s included proper infant stuff like playing and painting, but that is a while other thread)

tiggytape

It's worth remembering that even though the Code is law, it does not supersede primary legislation, and there is a case to be made here that the Code does not properly reflect primary legislation.

I would remind you that the both the 2009 and the 2010 School Admissions Codes contained incomplete and therefore inaccurate legal definitions of Reception class, which very likely exacerbated the already pervasive idea that all children should be in school, in Reception class, at the age of 4 – and certainly by the time they’ve turned 5. This is the definition provided:

“Defined by section 142 of the SSFA 1998. An entry class to primary schools for children who are aged 5 during the school year and for children who are younger than 5 who it is expedient to educate with them.”

Also look at the changes the DfE made to its Code in 2014:
summerbornchildren.org/2015/03/31/dfe-promised-flexibility-but-look-what-it-chose-to-change-in-the-code/

And the above changes in the context of a DfE that publicly declares 'the key thing is flexibility' and 'we want to empower parents':
summerbornchildren.org/2015/03/06/3-ministers-in-3-years-promise-us-flexibility-but-actions-speak-louder-than-words-what-will-nick-gibb-do-between-now-and-april-offer-day/

You may have confidence in the Code, and be satisfied that it works well when schools and councils can decide whether summer born children who start school at CSAge are forced to miss a year - at any point in their education - but I don't.

Look at this as an example of why the current system is so broken:
summerbornchildren.org/2015/03/26/kent-boy-forced-to-miss-year-of-school-with-devastating-consequences-and-unnecessary-sen/

Alberta in Canada has a flexible school starting age and regularly appears high up in international education league tables - and while I'm not suggesting that its success is 'because' of its admissions policy, it certainly demonstrates that its flexible admissions policy does not adversely affect pupils' outcomes. There is a fear of change by some in England, but the bottom line remains the same - our CSAge has been lowered by the back door for so long now that people think parents of summer born children are asking for something 'new' or 'special', and therefore it should be debated and challenged - when in fact what we're asking for is something we should have been entitled to for many decades. There would certainly have been significantly fewer cases of SEN diagnosis of summer born children, and therefore reduced costs for tax-payers...

Final point - where is the evidence that it is in ANY child's best interests to miss their critical and crucial foundation year of school and be forced to enter Year 1 instead? The DfE presented no such evidence to the Education Committee last year, and on the contrary, existing evidence shows that missing even part of a year of school is detrimental for children. The DfE's summer born policy is as unfounded as it is unfair, and I'm personally shocked at how many head teachers, council administrators and MPs are willing to accept a Code that means children can be forced to miss whole years of school as a direct result of their parents refusing to enrol them EARLY.

Exactly Tiggy. Those saying that their child should be able to start at 5 and have a full year of reception, well very few children can have that. A child born slap bang in the middle of year either starts school pre-5 (let's leave aside the whole 'term after 5' business, because that takes up a 5 month chunk of the year from spring to late August) or misses half of reception. There is no way of tinkering with the system to enable even the majority of children to have both those things (unless they skips bits of other years). It all becomes a question of degree.

I have to say that after returning to the UK I'm so shocked by the education system here. School undoubtably starts way too early and is incredibly inflexible. The summer born issue is clearly very significant, and cannot be denied looking at the statistics. It is also an issue that simply doesn't exist elsewhere in the world.

The delay that concerns me with my son is emotional maturity, he will become overwhelmed with a full day in a classroom, whether it's formal learning or not. He can behave well and concentrate but not for an entire day. He'll end up being disruptive and taking up a disproportionate amount of teacher time. The start of school is incredibly important as it is incredibly difficult to bring a child round to education if they had a rocky start. For that reason I won't start him until compulsory school age. But why should he then miss out on YR?

Those claiming it's impossible to create a fair system to all children completely fail to address the point that this "summer born" issue does not exist elsewhere in the world.

I started reception in 1960. You started the term before your 5th birthday so I started at Easter as I was a July birthday. After September us summer borns did an extra term in reception before joining the rest of our class in year 1. We didn't have a frenetic curriculum, just the 3Rs and country dancing if my memory serves me right, so we caught up easily

PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom yes but clearly starting school is much less damaging at 4.5 than at 4 (just look at the statistics). The older children start school the less important the birth month would be. If you also introduce flexibility you further reduce unfairness as those that are less developed will be the eldest.

TwoOdd - No. Other areas generally have one of two approaches. They either make everyone start later. Or they are able to be more flexible by having much lower population density and slack in the system. It isn't impossible to change things. But not enough people want to to put it on the political agenda.

"PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom yes but clearly starting school is much less damaging at 4.5 than at 4 (just look at the statistics). The older children start school the less important the birth month would be. If you also introduce flexibility you further reduce unfairness as those that are less developed will be the eldest."

I've said quite a few times I see the benefit in starting later. Yes, if the youngest was 4.5 that would help.

You don't ensure that the less developed would be the eldest by giving a parental option to defer. As I've been saying repeatedly, it takes a fair amount of educational and societal privilege to engage with the system enough to consider deferring and to have the financial and other resources to do so. An option to defer is likely to just result in the most vulnerable still starting at just turned four.

tiggytape

Reception class is not simply "play based".

There is a significant amount of formal education; numeracy and literacy (including a controversial emphasis on phonics), not to mention the fact that the child is 'in school'.

I agree with everyone that has posted to say that the system is not ideal (part-time attendance can even be difficult to negotiate for 4 year-old children), but early years experts have been trying to make governments listen to them for years, and the political will is simply not there to increase our CSAge.

Therefore, in the meantime, we need to work with what we CURRENTLY have, and this is a CSAge that means summer born children at least - who after all are the group of children MOST adversely affected by the current system - should be able to choose between starting school at age 4 or age 5.

Remember there are parents of September-born children who will say their child was 'ready' to go into Reception at age 4 but had to 'wait' a whole year and be bored in pre-school. This demonstrates that there WILL be summer born children still entering school at age 4, and hence the avoidance of creating a new cut-off line for spring-born children.

We've not even applied yet and I'm already stressed. My August born is due to start in 2016. I don't know yet whether he will be ready but I've been shocked to learn that it will be very difficult to allow him to start reception a year later if we decide that he's not. We live in an area where schools are over subscribed so most likely we will just be grateful to get him a place rather than fight for what is best for him. It's a crazy system!

tiggytape
Re: "As I've been saying repeatedly, it takes a fair amount of educational and societal privilege to engage with the system enough to consider deferring and to have the financial and other resources to do so. An option to defer is likely to just result in the most vulnerable still starting at just turned four."

Firstly, what you describe is what's currently needed to battle against schools and councils in order to try to achieve CSAge entry into Reception. The DfE's Code means that what you describe is PRECISELY what is happening - so surely you'd agree this is unfair?

Secondly, if the DfE made it absolutely clear that a CSAge start in Reception is possible, and this was communicated widely through Surestart centres and media articles, and parents knew they wouldn't have to fight for it or fear loss of a school year later on (the latter has already put many off), then this would also improve the situation.

Finally, the IFS said in 2007 that there may be a need to ensure extra financial funding for some families who may otherwise feel pressured into enrolling their child at age 4 (and therefore not really have a real 'choice').

So all this is possible, and the answer can no longer be 'just leave it the way it is' or 'better the devil we know'.

Reception class is NOT play based. We went to our preferred school and after the claim it is all "playbased" we were invited to go to the classroom one of the reception classes where the kids were sitting in semicircle, pads/pens in hands writing down 3+0=... 2+4=... or some such. Next door in year 1 there were examples of written work on the walls - "reception" handwriting and "year1" examples for the same kids side by side to demonstrate improvements. Sorry, it is either ALL playbased or please make sure that children who start at CSA have access to this year that clearly contains formal phonics/writing/arithmetic instructions.

tiggytape can you please categorically confirm that you are NOT working for an LA or connected to LA or DfE admissions in any way. I have hard time reading your very well-informed, yet biased posts. It will just make it clear which side you are on in this matter.

PMHull - that quotation was mine. And I've answered below earlier today why I think it's naïve to believe that making deferral a simple 'on request' process won't institutionalise even greater privilege than exists currently. I don't think the current process is good, no. I think your alternative is sadly worse.

As for the idea that funding would be forthcoming for childcare to help people to defer. I can't even begin to express how unlikely that is given how little help exists at present and the economic circumstances.

Have been out all day enjoying the sunshine, just wanted to come back to a few posts regarding the Catholic Schools.
Firstly would like to point out thy Cof E schools and Catholic schools have different criteria, if you were baptised in a C ofE church, you wouldn't get up the list for a catholic school.
I appreciate CofE schools allow in non faith children and it works, the reason for this is they are not as strict (on the religious side)
For example If you had 50% non faith children in a Catholic School, what would they all do in year three when the other children take their Holy Communion and the school are actively involved in preparing them for this.
I am sure the parents of the 50% non faith children would soon pipe up if class time was being spent on this. I believe one poster on here stated, she took the course and her son started attending church as he did not want to miss out on the Communion.
As far as I know the C of E schools don't don't do this, not do have as many masses or Church involvement so of course it would be fine to have non faith children. My point is this would be very hard to implement in a Catholic School.
It just seems that everyone automatically blames the Catholic schools for the school shortages, what about the fact that the government are not building enough schools to cope with the high birth rate. Let's face it, if the Catholic schools are over subscribed anyway and you took away all faith from schools there STILL wouldn't be enough places for everyone to go, so we would all be in the same position!!

Thanks so much for all your thoughts. We've been asked what this is for: it's for ITV on Monday - we'll try to post more details closer to the time.

Thanks
MNHQ

Thank you tiggy, so you are not connected with LA admissions or DfE, right?