Should children go to their local school rather than there being a choice?

[Bletchleyite]

Creating this thread because it came up in discussion in one of the COVID threads. It's not COVID specific, so I've put it here.

Rather than having people move around to "good" schools and people in "bad" ones being disadvantaged, should we look to improve bad schools and make a rule that you attend your local one, certainly at primary level but possibly also secondary?

It would allow the "school run" to be moved to largely be on foot or by bicycle, for one benefit. This would be a much bigger benefit during COVID but would be a benefit at other times too.

 

[najaB]

One issue that might come up is that a school might not be local but it may be very convenient - e.g. it's not local to the home address but it is local to a childminder/relative or close to work.

 

[thejuggler]

Another back to the future policy idea. Its how it worked for me, all done on catchment areas, not something I agree with.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Another back to the future policy idea. Its how it worked for me, all done on catchment areas, not something I agree with.

A small amount of local choice might be viable - for instance where I grew up there were two primaries within walking distance, and similarly two secondaries accessible via a train to Ormskirk (and one Catholic one you could walk to with a similar journey time). It probably in reality just requires keeping catchments very small.

 

[Ianno87]

"Choice" in theory is motivation for individual schools to seek high standards for themselves.

 

[scotrail158713]

Creating this thread because it came up in discussion in one of the COVID threads. It's not COVID specific, so I've put it here.

Rather than having people move around to "good" schools and people in "bad" ones being disadvantaged, should we look to improve bad schools and make a rule that you attend your local one, certainly at primary level but possibly also secondary?

It would allow the "school run" to be moved to largely be on foot or by bicycle, for one benefit. This would be a much bigger benefit during COVID but would be a benefit at other times too.

I reckon yes, you should just got to your local school. Never trust lists that rank schools either. I went to a supposedly “poor” secondary school, but in reality still got a perfectly acceptable education. Most people I speak to who went there as well say the same thing.

 

[pdeaves]

With a few exceptions, that's essentially how the current system works anyway. As I understand it, although there are no 'catchment areas', priority is given to whoever is closest to the school by drawing a straight line on a map, which in my mid is a 'catchment area'.

 

[ComUtoR]

How do you propose to deal with :

Grammar Schools
Special Educational Needs
Population Density
Excluded or disruptive children
Split parenting
Faith schools
Private schools
Specialist education
Sibling Linking
House prices
Social inequality

Probably many other issues too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How do you propose to deal with :

Grammar Schools

I don't agree with selection in secondary education.

Special Educational Needs
Excluded or disruptive children
Specialist education

Clearly this is relatively niche and may require exceptions. The Forum loves niches, but as with most things dealing with the majority would make big in-roads into the "school run" issue.

Population Density

Build and open schools in the required location.

Split parenting

Pick the home they spend most weekdays in. If there isn't one, pick either.

Faith schools

I'd ban them, TBH, I don't think they have a place in a secular state. But that's for another thread which I can't be bothered with at the moment All state schools should be faith-independent in my book.

Private schools

Again very much a minority thing not overly worth bothering about. Perhaps a "travel plan" could be required for these which would ban the use of private cars for dropping off and collecting children.

Sibling Linking

If every child went to their local school, they would go to the same one or another nearby - the problem is?

House prices
Social inequality

See the bit about improving all schools as a priority so there isn't an educational postcode lottery.

 

[Ianno87]

The school admissions system is kind (ish) of designed to avoid this anyway. I.e. places allocated based on priority criteria (e.g. living in catchment, siblings attending, etc).

Anybody attending from out of catchment is simply filling capacity that would otherwise be unallocated.

Cambridge does have a couple of "good" schools that are undersubscrbed*

Will the best will in the world there are always going to be 'good' and 'bad' schools. Some will always suffer from being in areas where the demographic is perhaps such that a minority of parents do just treat them as glorified daycare, which reflects on reinforcement of pupils' attitude and learning.


*Basically due to being surrounded by student properties, or £1m+ properties completely unaffordable to first time buyers who would otherwise be sending kids there.

 

[muz379]

I think regardless of any benefits or otherwise this would never be a politically popular move limiting parental choice .

Ive personally seen instances when a 'bad' school has been improved , at least by measure of GCSE results and ofsted ratings , and yet the local reputation of the school remains in place . I wonder how much this goes on across the country .

Im also unsure of how viable it would be to move the school run to being predominately on foot or by bicycle . I mean how many people drop their kids off on the way to work and pick them up on the way back from ?

This would need wholescale change on attitudes towards working hours , commuting etc to work in practice . And we dont currently have any mainstream party which would propose those measures .

 

[87 027]

I don't agree with selection in secondary education.

Comprehensives do this as well. My local comprehensive requires prospective year 7 entrants to sit a "banding test" which is designed to achieve a relatively even mix across the range of abilities for each intake. You could argue this is a fair way of keeping standards even and avoiding inequalities.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Comprehensives do this as well. My local comprehensive requires prospective year 7 entrants to sit a "banding test" which is designed to achieve a relatively even mix across the range of abilities for each intake. You could argue this is a fair way of keeping standards even and avoiding inequalities.

I don't agree with it there either. It's more about league tables than either of those things. We did perfectly well without it.

My school, which was called a Grammar School but was actually a very highly-respected non-selective comprehensive (and other than a Catholic school with restricted admissions was my nearest school), was quite big on the point that it wasn't bothered about league tables and instead put the effort into a high quality of teaching, which is what matters, respecting the fact that achievements would differ but that effort was what counted.

I don't mind selection within schools i.e. setting provided progression is provided for, i.e. you might be in bottom set Maths in year 7 but decent effort is put into getting you moved up so far as is feasible, and quality of teaching doesn't suffer because of it. Another thing that might be good is more vocational learning in schools for those who suit it. But I have a problem with deciding a young person's next several years based on an exam taken at far too young an age.

 

[najaB]

I don't agree with selection in secondary education.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with selection in secondary education. The devil is, as always, in the details.

Some people are, undeniably, more academically inclined and some are more vocationally inclined - it's all down to which of the seven intelligences they dominate with. The problem with many school systems (and society generally) is that they ascribe more import to some of the intelligences than others. This means that vocational qualifications are seen as a "consolation prize" rather than being the useful things that they are.

To my mind, a more effective education system would (a) be selective at around age 11; (b) teach largely the same curriculum in first and second year; and (c) allow transfers between schools during years 1-3. Years 4+ would then teach the same core curriculum but have different electives with some schools focusing on traditional academic subjects, some on the arts and others on vocational skills.

The main problem with Grammar Schools in the UK is that they (largely) select their intake based on the earnings of their parents rather than the capabilities of the students.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The trouble there is that moving between schools is a big thing for kids - new friends etc.

Better that we offer more within one system I'd say. That could be done by grouping schools together to offer them - the old LEA structure was ideal for that.

 

[Jimbob52]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with selection in secondary education. The devil is, as always, in the details.

Some people are, undeniably, more academically inclined and some are more vocationally inclined - it's all down to which of the seven intelligences they dominate with. The problem with many school systems (and society generally) is that they ascribe more import to some of the intelligences than others. This means that vocational qualifications are seen as a "consolation prize" rather than being the useful things that they are.

To my mind, a more effective education system would (a) be selective at around age 11; (b) teach largely the same curriculum in first and second year; and (c) allow transfers between schools during years 1-3. Years 4+ would then teach the same core curriculum but have different electives with some schools focusing on traditional academic subjects, some on the arts and others on vocational skills.

The main problem with Grammar Schools in the UK is that they (largely) select their intake based on the earnings of their parents rather than the capabilities of the students.

Could you provide evidence for your rather sweeping statement about selection being based on parents' earnings?

 

[najaB]

The trouble there is that moving between schools is a big thing for kids - new friends etc.

Better that we offer more within one system I'd say.

This is all about trade-offs. We want schools to be small enough to be local but large enough to offer all subjects - which isn't really practical. At the end of the day, which is the larger damage: that some 12 to 14 year-olds have to make new friends, or that they don't achieve their full educational potential?

 

[underbank]

How are you going to improve a "bad" school in a run down area, such as a Northern town or "past it's best" seaside resort, where there is little quality employment, low parental aspirations, high unemployment, high deprivation, high crime, drug problems, etc? However much money you throw at it, you're fighting a losing battle if the kids can't see any future and have no parental support.

My own home town was such an area.

Kids with "parents who care" moved heaven and earth to get their kids to a different school to avoid the crime, disruption, etc. They'd pretend to be religious, they'd try to teach for the 11+, they'd apply to other schools "just in case" there was space. For them, it was the only way their kids could have a decent future.

My parents sent my brother to a private school because he was allocated probably the worst school in town - that meant no holidays, no new cars, both parents working evening jobs as well as their day jobs to earn more money. They weren't rich - father worked in a grocers shop, mother was a secretary. But they knew my brother wouldn't get anywhere at the school allocated.

Things were different when it was my time. The local grammar had just converted into a comp the year before and everyone was delighted as they were promised "a grammar education for all", but it was all rubbish. They closed a failing secondary and moved all the kids to the old grammar and it plummetted. I ended up failing all my O levels (despite being a A* pupil at primary) because of the bullying, disruption, teachers having nervous breakdowns, etc.

Forcing kids to go to their nearest school makes things worse not better. For schools close to run down estates, council estates, etc., it limits their choice and social mobility. A school with a catchment of "problem" homes is simply never going to succeed. You'd need to rebuild schools in specially selected areas with a decent mix of households for it to work - that's never going to happen.

 

[High Dyke]

Perhaps the system needs looking at. For example, the primary school I went to was the nearest to where I lived, and currently live now. However, a number of local parents now look for other schools in the area; whether this is a result of Ofsted scores (if they still have such things), a lack of suitable places for local children at their nearest school or just parents thinking they are better than their neighbours I don't know.

Interestingly enough when I moved to secondary school, a new one had been built across town and me, like many others, had to make the journey over to it, in order to fill it, even though it wasn't the nearest to my house.

 

[Mojo]

One issue that might come up is that a school might not be local but it may be very convenient - e.g. it's not local to the home address but it is local to a childminder/relative or close to work.

Or even (and I appreciate this is primarily a city problem) - be geographically close in terms of kilometres as the crow flies - but not very convenient for making a journey to. I often think of the area of London that I used to live in; I would put my postcode into company websites to find my nearest shop and it would often find somewhere in a fairly large centre which is 3-4 km away, but which it would take me two buses and the best part of 50 minutes to get to, but it would actually often be better to make a journey to somewhere twice as far, but can be reached in less than half the time because it is easier to get to.

 

[87 027]

Very true.

I also doubt the real world practicality of “Build and open schools in the required location” in heavily built up areas, particularly in and around London

 

[Typhoon]

I don't mind selection within schools i.e. setting provided progression is provided for, i.e. you might be in bottom set Maths in year 7 but decent effort is put into getting you moved up so far as is feasible, and quality of teaching doesn't suffer because of it. Another thing that might be good is more vocational learning in schools for those who suit it. But I have a problem with deciding a young person's next several years based on an exam taken at far too young an age.

I think that is a wholly commendable idea. Children do not develop at the same rates by any manner of speaking. To take your example of Maths further, there might be others who have achieved well in basic arithmetic so have been put in a higher set but have struggled with algebra and trigonometry, say. They might benefit from moving to a lower set where there is more time to explain these concepts. Additionally, the 11+ is designed (apparently) to test who is academic so though you are good at all 'academic' subjects. Just because you cannot tell which of five shapes goes next doesn't mean that you won't be a good linguist, just because you cannot identify passive and future perfect tenses does mean that you won't be a decent scientist.

I would add that I don't think an academically gifted child should be prevented from taking some vocational courses, the idea that just because you have got paper qualifications means you should try to get more paper qualifications doesn't benefit industry and commerce.

Returning to the theme of the thread, one benefit from having different types of Academy is that a potential linguist (say) could go to a specialist Academy where a greater range of languages are offered, likewise other specialisms. I do realise that this does not suit those that live in rural settings.

 

[najaB]

Could you provide evidence for your rather sweeping statement about selection being based on parents' earnings?

Apologies, the selective schools I was referring to weren't state-funded grammar schools but rather privately funded public schools that make a small percentage of places available via selection. So the majority of students attending such schools are there because their parents could afford to send them there.

 

[mmh]

Creating this thread because it came up in discussion in one of the COVID threads. It's not COVID specific, so I've put it here.

Rather than having people move around to "good" schools and people in "bad" ones being disadvantaged, should we look to improve bad schools and make a rule that you attend your local one, certainly at primary level but possibly also secondary?

It would allow the "school run" to be moved to largely be on foot or by bicycle, for one benefit. This would be a much bigger benefit during COVID but would be a benefit at other times too.

I'd say yes, but just with exceptions (which need to be applied for, not automatically given) for language, faith and those with a sibling already in a particular school. Although I'd prefer faith schools not to exist.

That's how my secondary school was "chosen" and I suspect outside cities it's still what happens in practice for the vast majority of kids.

 

[mmh]

Very true.

I also doubt the real world practicality of “Build and open schools in the required location” in heavily built up areas, particularly in and around London

That does happen though. In the area I lived in in London the population increased dramatically in the space of a decade and two existing primary schools were rebuilt as a secondary and a smaller site used for a new primary, primaries needing less land.

In this area, one of Llandudno's former secondary schools was converted to a primary many years ago. Similar repurposing probably happens all the time.

 

[al78]

Or even (and I appreciate this is primarily a city problem) - be geographically close in terms of kilometres as the crow flies - but not very convenient for making a journey to. I often think of the area of London that I used to live in; I would put my postcode into company websites to find my nearest shop and it would often find somewhere in a fairly large centre which is 3-4 km away, but which it would take me two buses and the best part of 50 minutes to get to, but it would actually often be better to make a journey to somewhere twice as far, but can be reached in less than half the time because it is easier to get to.

Or you could cycle in 20 minutes. It takes me about half an hour to cycle from Victoria to Euston, which is a longer distance and has seemingly hundreds of red traffic lights (at least whenever I cycle it).

In fact, I could walk that distance in under 50 minutes.

 

[Mojo]

Or you could cycle in 20 minutes. It takes me about half an hour to cycle from Victoria to Euston, which is a longer distance and has seemingly hundreds of red traffic lights (at least whenever I cycle it).

In fact, I could walk that distance in under 50 minutes.

Why mess about with doing that when there is a perfectly adequate system already in place?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why mess about with doing that when there is a perfectly adequate system already in place?

The present school system isn't "perfectly adequate". In particular it causes a large number of car journeys.

 

[al78]

Why mess about with doing that when there is a perfectly adequate system already in place?

Because taking 20 minutes for a journey for the mimimal cost of a small amount of effort is better than taking 50 minutes for the same journey and being dependant on bus times. Cycling is often quicker than a bus in urban traffic, which is one reason I don't bother with buses in my local town. Cycling is a perfectly adequate mode of transport for a lot of local journeys, and you'd be surprised what you can fit in a couple of panniers.

 

[Mojo]

Because taking 20 minutes for a journey for the mimimal cost of a small amount of effort is better than taking 50 minutes for the same journey and being dependant on bus times. Cycling is often quicker than a bus in urban traffic, which is one reason I don't bother with buses in my local town. Cycling is a perfectly adequate mode of transport for a lot of local journeys, and you'd be surprised what you can fit in a couple of panniers.

Or, just spend 20 minutes travelling somewhere that is further away, but easier to get to