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.

Sweetie

You are right it's not a coincidence that faith schools do better - its social selection
news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2013/12/02/faith-schools-accused-of-failing-to-admit-pupils-from-poor-homes.aspx

www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar/05/faith-schools-admissions

Why do faith schools consistently have less pupils on FSM than the national average and the local area?

On another point, my DDs school does not prioritise siblings over catchment, we moved last year and didn't realise we were moving out of catchment (one road out) until we had exchanged, I also did not realise that my other children would not be guaranteed a place.
There are arguments for both sides of this, on the one hand you cannot reasonably expect someone to drop two children to different schools, be here for pick up etc.
On the other hand if you have an only child and live on the doorstep of a very good school, you could be denied a place due to a high sibling intake
Personally as I have four children, I would like to have a sibling over catchment rule (that's just my opinion though)

gah! not less I mean fewer

Archery in some areas the baptism-by-six-months rule is particularly divisive because English Catholics baptise asap but Polish Catholics tend to wait a little longer.

Three houses in a row, all put school 1 and 2 top, and school 3 at the bottom. All 3 got different places allocated.
We are not in catchment for our nearest school (primary OR secondary - the two schools I can see from the end of the road), and on the occasions I can do a school pick up, I pass loads of parents going in the other direction to a different school - so we all cross paths.
Absolutely barmy.

How do scotland manage to get everyone into the nearest / catchment school? Can we move to that model???

I think perhaps for siblings they should accept them up to double the normal catchment. That allows some flexibilty but not piss taking.

DS school had a catchment last year of around 0.4 miles, yet siblings got in who live around 3 miles away. That is where it becomes unfair IMO

Chazs - I am assuming that is free school meals (I am not up with the lingo haha)

Well I can only speak from my experience at my daughters school their criteria is as follows -
1 children that have been statemented/in the care system
2 children who are practising Catholics ( regularly attend mass etc) and live in the catchment)

1. Children who cannot reasonably get a catholic education elsewhere

4 catholic children who live out of catchment 5 all other applicants

There are a few children in my DDs year that do get free school meals but tbh most of the parents work.
Just to clarify (only as I have seen other posts) we were not asked to donate anything to the school when applying (ie trips or stays at a country house- not that I would even have these to give haha ) we simply fell into the admissions criteria ie lived in catchment,'practising Catholics etc.
The only explanation I have with the lack of FSM is that a lot of the parents work and therefore cannot claim this. If you were from a poorer backround, lived in catchment, went to church you would have the same chance of getting in to your local catholic school as the rich catholic person next door.

I know a lot of people do think it is all rich parents "buying" their way into catholic schools but is simply not the case, in our parish, if you are not at church every week, the priest will simply not sign your letter and the likelihood is you won't get in.

*Faith offers additional choices in education. As money does.

Those with no money and no religion have fewer choices.*

Completely true. But me paying to send my children to a private school wouldn't hit anyone else's pockets. And I am free to do so if I want to. Faith schools are not private in the UK - they are state-subsidised and my tax money contributes towards them - yet my children cannot go there. That's not less choice as a result of poor life choices. That's the definition of discrimination.

I think that is a good idea Sirzy, regarding catchments for siblings.

Forgot to say that our LA puts last year's data on the application form, so you can look at each school and see its admissions criteria (LA or VA) and applications by preference (first to third) and PAN and where the cutoff fell.

I mean, you have to be pretty literate to make sense of it, but you can easily get it.

I think a big change is needed simplyin vocabulary toto make sure we talk about allocations and preferences, and not choice. Lots of MNers patiently explain the ins and outs each year (use all the spaces on the form, if possible list at least one school you will get into, here's the deadline, the LA doesn't care about your working patterns) but the children most in need of a good school place are the least likely to have parents able to secure one.

I think the faith issue is a big barrier. Round here, of my 5 nearest primaries, 4 are C of E and prioritising churchgoers, leaving everyone else effectively at the back of the queue. Pure discrimination in my view. It is effectively being used as a barrier to keep the best schools naice white and MC (as far as I can tell). Nevermind the fact that I don;t want Christianity foisted on my DC at school. Time to separate education and religion please!

Very much what I was saying upthread, sleeplessbunny. Couldn't agree more about the need to separate education and religion (at least for tax-funded schools).

Wondered what people think about 'values' schools? There are a few about which look interesting. In theory they offer the good side of faith schools (in that they talk about values like kindness, honesty, perseverance,tolerance etc.), but it has nothing to do with religion. I think there is a new free school chain in London opening with that mandate.

I think perhaps for siblings they should accept them up to double the normal catchment. That allows some flexibilty but not piss taking.

What would you call the 'normal' catchement Sirzy? In some schools it can vary massively year on year. And in some areas of London the catchment may only be a couple of hundred metres, making every last cm count (and probably effectively preventing families ever moving, as even a very short distance would be too far).

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with your issue. It's so unfair. But I am not sure much is going to help unless the pressure on places eases.

Fundamentally, the class size limits and the funding model are unsustainable with the pressure on places. Funding for one extra head is bugger all use if taking one extra child means adding a whole extra class.

I found it distressing that schools we spoke to had such a negative attitude towards home ed. We wanted information on how to transfer back in after home ed, and about mixing home ed and school...but all we got was hysteria.

I also totally agree that it is an abomination that schools are selecting on the basis of parental faith. It is disgusting and I cannot imagine how it can be defended in a country that doesn't allow discrimination by religion in the work place.

As parent of an only child this is my one and only experience of admissions. I tried to understand it but soon realised on all visits that most parents don't. Many thought they we're guaranteed a place because of siblings and many also thought that because you get a choice of three schools then these are equal.

From what I understand, catchment school is usually most likely but then not guaranteed either. You'd only get a place elsewhere if there were 'spare' non catchment or non sibling spaces (after considering children in care etc).

Still don't know realistically if I stand much chance of first choice and put catchment as second choice. A friend has only put one non catchment school down because that's where her other child goes. She believes that if she listed catchment school then they'd automatically be given it, so hasn't put an alternative down.

Basically, I don't think parents stand a chance of realistically assessing likelihood of a place without studying various stats on each school year. Hopefully we'll get first or second and I can cope with that for now.

I disagree vehemently with state funded faith schools. However, people love anything that allows them to achieve social selection no while pretending to be against it, so I gues we're stuck with the awful things.

I do have a big issue with LAs giving planning approval to enormous housing developments without properly thinking through the school provision. There is a huge development of news houses (essentially building a whole new area of the city) near me. The developers want to sell it on being in this area (with the sought after schools) but there is not simply enough space for the children in the new houses.

It's a serious issue here and it was obviously going to happen. They should have planned a whole new school system part of the new development from the outset.

The other thing I have an huge issue with is specialisms within the current admissions system. It is absolutely nonsensical for secondary schools to have specialisms when you can only get into the school if you live within some tiny distance and/or got your children into them correct primary school. It means that you either need to decide what specialism your teenage child will excel in at 3/4 when applying for a reception place or when you choose where to live (whichever is sooner). Silliness.

If schools are going to have specialisms they need to sit outside the ordinary schools system a bit, be centrally located do people can acfess them and allocate places fairly across a large area. Ds1's school, for example, is in they it's centre and has a catchment of several counties. They're brand new so aren't full yet, but the plan is to allocate places by lottery so that the children in the next town aren't disadvantaged if they want to specialise in their area.

Some of those are more reasonable than others, tiggytape. Again, using the "would this be legal in an employment situation" guideline, if I was recruiting for an orchestra, then musical aptitude would be relevant. Throwing away all applications from, eg, otherwise qualified Hindu trumpet-players on the grounds they were Hindu would be neither reasonable nor legal.

(And of course in any case faith schools aren't ever actually measuring the child's faith, but the parents'.)

tiggy are you lumping all those together as comparable selection criteria? Or just listing it as facts?

I wish it surprised me, but it doesn't, that the one thing you don't see is selection by race.

Somehow racism is seen as the worst of the isms.

I can cope with selecting by geographic area (because that is improving efficiency) and by sibling entrance (because it must be nightmare getting siblings to different schools). The others seem morally wrong to me, for government funded schools in any case.

DS1's previous high school was a language specialist school. That's very, very low down the list of specialisms you'd choose for DS1. But given that admission is all about which feeder you went to and where you live, you just have to go with whatever specialism your local school has chosen.

I suspect the proliferation of pointless specialisms was all part of new labour's pretence of increasing parental choice (see also expansion of faith schools). It was all very poorly thought through.

I secretly think my DD could make quite a good catholic - she believes in ghosts and is very judgemental about eating the wrong things, swearing and smoking.

Unfortunately DH and I are staunch atheists and refuse to allow her to practice her religion....

My tuppenceworth - faith schools are terribly unfair - as Tiggy said, it wasn't an issue until school places became difficult. Now the crazy situation of people being unable to send their children to any of their local schools - which is real and really happening, not just a made up scenario.

And the centralisation of schools planning is an unmitigated disaster, and I have no idea why it's been allowed to continue down the route it has taken. It is going to get a lot worse before it can get any better, even if corrective action is taken now. Free schools are a total joke - why on earth not let councils assess and plan their local education needs? Oh no, there's no profit in that

Someone else up thread commented that we pay taxes for schools to be built, run, staffed and available for our children - it's a disgrace that it's turned into this lottery.

Icebeing did you mean to be so rude? I agree that allocating school places on a religious basis is unfair but it's not the Catholic population that's responsible for the system

I secretly think my DD could make quite a good catholic - she believes in ghosts and is very judgemental about eating the wrong things, swearing and smoking

Don't think you know much about religion, our priest is a heavy smoker, and most priests I know, esp Irish Catholics, love a good tipple. In fact all catholics I know are laid back jolly people.Cant speak for the other religions though.

In fact most Vicars love a tippple too.