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.

And meanwhile over on AIBU there is another thread on whether it is ok to lie about where you live to get a school place

Phonics in nursery is ridiculous.

I mean you can try teaching kids to walk when they are 3mo...but in reality all you do is waste your time. They get it when they are ready.

Phonics is an example of something that can be picked up in a week once kids are actually ready to learn it and something you can be battering away at for years making no progress if they aren't. Oh and while you are battering you are actually reducing kids interest in reading....it has been shown that starting reading later makes no difference to attainment but does increase interest in reading...

I agree totally ice. Are you a teacher?

My son is Autumn born and I felt his last year at nursery was a total waste of his time. Perhaps I should start a campaign for autumn born children (where Autumn ends in February obviously) so that they can go to school earlier?

I am late summer born. I started school at 4 and a tiny bit. I'm not even slightly bothered by it and have never felt it hindered me.

The process for applying for summer born children is identical to every other child: you apply by mid-January for September. You can then defer your child's entry until after Christmas, after Easter or miss reception entirely if you wish. If your child has particular developmental needs or SN you can apply for them to start reception a year later but this is a separate application and dealt with like an appeal.

My thoughts on primary admissions are:

1. the LA should be obliged to provide a school place at the closest school. If this means additional classes/creating a new school then they should be obligated to do this.

2. The LA must ensure that any additional homes built have new schools/classes included in the area to offset need.

3. There should be no faith schools at all. The church can donate them to the state (like people who can't afford the upkeep on stately homes donate them to the NT). This would free up local places for children who live nearer the school.

4. Admission criteria should be: Statemented/looked after children followed by catchment siblings, catchment, non-catchment siblings (in LA), non-catchment, out of LA. Catchments should overlap if possible so that each child has two catchment schools so they can choice the closest.

Proof of residence should be obligatory and LA's should also do better fraud checks.

I think all that sounds very sensible indeed! I'll vote for you.

In practice, all children being able to go to the closest school would be v difficult indeed in London and probably some other cities - but there's no reason why they shouldn't say at a school within 1km or 2km or something sensibly walkable (to allow for extra classes being able to be set up in a school that has more space than others).

I definitely like point 2.

Point 1 would be very difficult as some schools would vary more than others.

With siblings - if you were out of catchment when placed in a school not of your choice, then you should get sibling priority.

Waspie has my vote as well.

On point 3 - a friend has pointed out to me that this is exactly what some of the nonconformist christians (Methodists and suchlike) did with tbeir schools- handed then over to fhe community to benefit everyone. The CofE and the Catholic church didn't, obviously, but there's nothing stopping them.

I'm in the slightly unusual position of already knowing which school ds2 is going to next year and accepting the offer -Milton Keynes council screwed up and sent out some of their letters about 10 days ago, by mistake. About 100 letters didn't get sent out which caused lots of angst for some parents who didn't know when their children's friends did and at first MK council refused to let them know in advance but apparently they have now relented so everybody in MK knows. It's certainly reduced the stress as the letter turned up before I'd had a chance to start worrying about the imminent offer, so maybe more councils should do this! Does make a mockery of national results day though and raises red flags as to other mistakes that might have been made that just weren't quite so obvious...

Other than that - Both schools that ds1 and ds2 go to have split their entry criteria so that siblings within catchment are treated differently to siblings from out of catchment - who come after children without siblings in the catchment area. This seems to be an eminently sensible way to significantly cut down on the number of people that rent an address locally to get their first child into a school and then rely on the sibling preference to get the rest of the siblings in whilst others from within the catchment area end up having to find schools elsewhere. Obviously it's not a perfect solution - I don't think there is one, but it is something that would be pretty easy to implement and could really make a difference.

And back in time, when ds1 first needed to go to school, we didn't get anything through to warn us about application dates. I don't know what I was expecting - but I was expecting something to come through, like a letter or form I suppose, in the same way that when it was time for a vaccination or Health Visitor check, a letter turned up.

As it was, pure fluke, I happened to be at the GPs and saw a small poster on their noticeboard that had the dates on - and the closing date was the next week. Luckily I was able to go and have a look around a couple of schools and get the application in on time but another school said that they had already done their open days and so it was tough, I couldn't look around. I had been at the GPs a month or so previously and hadn't seen the poster then - and if I hadn't been to the GPs then I don't know how I would have found out about the dates in time. Not knowing any parents of older children locally, it just hadn't occurred to me that the application date came around as soon as it did (pre national results day and it wasn't such a big thing in the news). So something that lets first time parents know in advance about the timings of these things would have been really welcomed, rather than hoping they saw a small poster!

I agree with your point on siblings Yonic. My son was placed in a bulge class 5 miles from home but the LA then stipulated that younger siblings would be able to request this school as their catchment school, which struck me as surprisingly sensible!

As to the obligation to be placed in the nearest/catchment school I can also see so many practical problems with this, like you all can. This is my utopian dream rather than something I think could actually happen

I am not in London, but Berkshire, and we have had huge issues with over subscription due to vast numbers of number homes being built and the increase in the birth rate. I have posted before about the fact that we (as a community group) ended up opening a free school in our area in order that the local children had a school within walking distance to attend. Our free school is run exactly as an LA school would be, i.e. it follows the national curriculum, employs qualified teachers and has the same admission criteria as every other (non faith) school in the borough. It took 2.5 years of very hard work (hard work is ongoing!) and we opened in Sept 2014 already running a waiting list for all three years (R, Yr1 and Yr2). We will be full again this year and running a waiting list for Reception. We are also opening another Yr3 class due to the large waiting list. However the LA have still never acknowledged that we have a places shortage/issue in our area.

ArcheryAnnie - interesting point on non-conformist schools being given to the state. I think the same thing happened with hospitals. Now we would be shocked if a hospital wouldn't admit a patient because they were not a practising member of that faith. Yet, we accept the situation in education.

AlmostApril - Bit of a way down now, but I've just checked the websites of local schools. The 'best' schools (i.e. the competitive ones with the outstanding rating) have their phonics results on the website. Our school doesn't and DD1 must be doing it soon but I've never heard of it. Yet we have comparable SATs results at KS2 (marginally ahead in some subjects, marginally below on others. Varies which subject by year so I'm assuming that's the natural variation in ability of the cohort).

almostapril I am a higher ed teacher...not early years but steeped in general pedagogic theory.

Fundamentally kids are ready for formal education at different ages. That difference decreases somewhat as they get older. I think anybody should be able to ask to put their kids into formal education earlier or later than standard and have that claim tested then acted on. I also thing kids should be able to move forwards and backwards years more easily if necessary.

Other than that I agree with waspie

I have only read to page number 10 However I wanted to comment on how much " catchment area" is used.as a fair suggestion on how children should be admitted to a school.

I live on the border of 3 counties with a 4th being 10 minutes down the road.

When using catchment areas some of our closest schools are outside of catchment areas as they are in different counties. So for me saying people in catchment area is not a good idea.
I would far rather it was done simply by distance NOT by catchment area.

However doing distance only makes for issues in places where this means that you have a river or a motor way inbetween so really can not sensibility manage the 1 mile journey to the school without going for a 30 minute drive. I don't fully know the answer to this if such schools could say (for example) M25 is the cut off or how and this then becomes a issue. Perhaps walking route is more sensible. Judging however from the many issues I see on this on the school boards I know that is not without flaw either.

I am however not a fan of " catchment areas or admission priority areas as they are called"

For my sons secondary school they use a interesting system (I feel) it is done by inner circle (within 3 miles of the school) and then by parish (not a CofE school btw) The 2nd actually cuts off at the border to another county so they go quite low on the list now, for them this may feel unfair. So perhaps a mixture of this saying a inner circle of for example 2 miles (or even 1 mile) and everyone else (siblings included ) on distance would be fair. Would make a admission criteria similar to this

I am not adding SEN as I understand it if you have a statement then you will get in via different means to usual admission.

1 LAC
2 Siblings within inner circle
3 children living in inner circle
4 all other children done by distance.

You could even use this for faith schools
1 LAC
2 Siblings of faith within inner circle
3 Children of faith living in inner circle
4 Children not of faith living in inner circle
5 Children of faith outside inner circle on distance (could have a sibling clause there too)
6 Children not of faith outside inner circle on distance.

(I am not entering the argument on if Faith schools should exist here they do and I am using this as an example)

The CofE primary my youngest attends recently change their admission criteria they now have 4 named parish as their 2nd priority (after lac) This means for one of those Parish they for the first in many years they have a school they are high priority to get into. (I am unaware of there ever having been a school in this parish)
It caused some issues as it meant that children from this parish were admitted above children living in the closer town. However to me it was utterly fair to do as otherwise the children living in this parish often ended up without a close school. This school IS their closest school. Where as the children living in the local town has a choice of the town school and 3 other village schools.

So in this case I feel admitting children who lives further away first is actually very fair. So for such situations there should be a possibility to make a inner circle that was done on Parish or other sensible reasons. (like motorways that isnt possible to cross)

Would shared catchments work any better?

What about having parental employment needs on there as a criterion, so you could specify that you wanted your child at school near your workplace, for example, or you wanted to choose a school because it had wraparound care and you had a full-time job? Would that be a bit more modern than assuming a parent (usually mum) is free for up to 80 minutes twice a day to walk the legal maximum of 2 miles each way to primary school?

Now that's utopian !

I think the problem with that is you do not anymore have many people who stay in the same job for years and years So you end up with a similar situation to people renting for a few years to get into " good " schools.

yes people's employment changes for all kinds of reasons, you couldn't tie a school place to one place of work. But what is necessary - and seems revolutionary - but shouldnt - is for schools in general to recognise that parents work. Distance from school, wrap around care, etc - a million things can make things ok, possible but hellish, or frankly impossible. Why? Neither schooling your child nor going to work are optional!

I think the other thing that needs to happen is that schools and local authorities need to realise that children are ending up in schools that are not their local school and may well also end up in a different school to their sibling. So they need to come up with some practical solutions for parents who do find themselves in those situations.

If parents need to be in two different places at the same time to ensure each child is in school at the right time, then obviously it's not going to happen. They might be lucky and have different starting times that makes it possible to juggle them but equally they might not. To just say 'your responsibility' and 'we'll fine you if your dc are late lots' is effectively putting a tax onto those who are unlucky enough to find themselves in this situation - which chances are they don't want to be in anyway - and is just adding insult to injury. And even if before or after school clubs are available it means that the parent(s) have to pay £5-20 a day per child for before and/or after school care which mounts up over the course of several years, that those that are lucky enough to have children in the same school won't have to pay out for.

Unfortunately I don't have any solutions. But I do think that in recognising that there is a problem, the councils do need to start to do some serious thinking about solutions so that parents aren't further penalised when they can't get into their local school or can't get siblings into school together.

Actually, prompted by another thread....

In areas with actual catchments, I think the application should force you to put your catchment school somewhere in the preferences. It would prevent some of the worst parental cock ups on the form.

Penguins, I think the problem with that would be the implicit guarantee that you'd get your nearest school/catchment school.

Penguins is on to something though. (Hello again)

When we applied online for DC2 this year, you had to enter name, address, DoB, etc first, then click through to the school bit. You chose schools from a drop-down list, and our catchment school was first, then our insurance, etc, then others in alphabetical order IIRC.

I'm not sure if it knew we were in catchment, mind you, or going by distance as the crow flies from postcode to postcode.

Our LA has defined catchments so for any address it can say what the catchment school is. There could easily be a dialog box that says "you have not listed your catchment school in your preferences. Do you want to carry on, or go back and edit?" or a star next to your catchment school in the dropdown. Very easy coding.

Here we can only name three schools so forcing one "choice" would be a big reduction, compared with doing the same in a six-preference area.

I agree - there would need to be min 4 choices. Point taken Yonic. I suppose I was thinking that so many people seem believe they will get their catchment school as a back up even without listing it that it couldn't make that much worse?

Realistically if a parent had children in two separate schools come distance away, and this had been allocated by the local authority, I cannot possibly see how a fine for lateness would stand up legally. If you can't physically get somewhere in time because a government organisation has decided to put you in that position, surely that can be challenged?