A unique opportunity to have your say
On Tuesday ParentsOutloud met with the School Chief Adjudicator to discuss the difficult issue of school places. Here is Dr Ian Craig’s response and invitation to say what you think needs to be done so I hope lots of you will respond. All responses will be read by Dr Craig.
Thank you for giving me your time on Tuesday 15 December to discuss this issue.
As you know, the Secretary of State asked me to investigate, and report to him earlier this Autumn on the extent to which parents use misleading information to obtain a school place for their children. My report, which I delivered to him on 1 October 2009 summarised information from 123 of the 152 local (education) authorities in England, suggested that it is a significant problem. I suggested several things that could be done in addition to the withdrawal of the places currently allowed by the School Admissions Code. He accepted these recommendations, but asked me to produce a follow-up report early in 2010 with some further suggestions.
I am currently meeting with local authority and other interested groups around the country in preparation for this second report – which was why I asked to meet you. Your advice, as always, was very helpful to me. At the end of our meeting I told you of the parent groups that I had already contacted, and whether you could suggest any others. What you did suggest was that you would be happy to put my request for information on your website. Thank you. What I would like to know is:
When parents obtain a school place through deception, they deprive another parent and child, who should legitimately have it, of that place – this is not therefore a victimless action. If misleading information has been used to gain the place, the current School Admissions Code allows a local authority to remove the place. This does not seem to many local authorities, nor to many parents, to be a significant enough deterrent. I am interested in any thoughts parents have on what additional actions should be put in place to deter purposely misleading applications – beyond the obvious one of making all school equally attractive and high performing – which goes without saying.
Ian Craig
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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To point out the obvious inconvenient truth here…if we did not have mass immigration into England we would have less battling between our own for school places.
If “making all school equally attractive and high performing” is an obvious additional action why are parents not seeing this action being taken. Why are parents, year on year, facing the often uncomfortable dilemma of how to secure a place at the school of their choice?
Sadly, the deception tactics will always make good headlines and distract us from the cause. Every school should be a good school and every parent should be able to secure a place in the school of their choice. However, the reality is that applying for a school place is not a standard process and differs widely within one local authority area never mind the picture across the country. Differences in selection criteria; differences in ’specialist’ school status; and differences in ‘catchment areas’ let alone the important differences in our children and what is right for them.
Choosing a secondary school for my daughter was never about being able to choose the nearest school secure in the knowledge that it would be a good school. Six schools (plus two selective boys grammar schools), within two miles of our home - two are selective single sex girls grammar schools(one a specialist maths and science school and one a specialist business and enterprise school), one is a faith school and three are non-selective (one a specialist business and enterprise school, one a specialist creative arts school and one a sports college). Not a like for like comparison when making a choice. More choice? Not really, just a determination to gain a place at the one school that was right for her. Did I have to be deceptive to get a place? No. Would I have considered it? Probably.
Other parents who live more than two miles away do not even have the choice of a place at a number of non selectiveschools (as we did)because of the home to school distance. Might they consider providing untrue information? Of course they will.
And just to complete the picture of why parents may not be entirely truthful in their application for a school place. Both parents probably work full time (another key Government objective). So, yes I do want a school that is the right one for my child but I also need it to be convenient but this might not mean near to my home it may be near to childcare, family carers or where I work.
Of course we know that breaking the rules is not fair or acceptable. But do not be surprised that it happens and that deterrents do not work. Take a closer look at the system parents are faced with before making a judgement.
I so agree with Laura especially on the point of access where parents work this is becoming a major factor to have children in a school near your work and or near their carers homes would give so much peace of mind and mean in an emergency the parent or the carer can be in the school quickly.
We could draw a line round each school, call it ‘a catchment area’ Then all the children from that area go to that school. No-one else gets in - they all go to their own local school.
Then we could spend time and energy raising standards in all schools instead of spending energy scrapping over the ‘good’ schools’ few places.
The LEA could plan for the numbers it would have in each school instead of just setting a limit. If children moved into the area during the year, they would automatically go to that school.
We’d all be less stressed. Children would still get educated. Money would be saved because the admissions and appeals system could be scrapped. There would be less spent on travel and a lower carbon footprint.
My daughter is nearly 16 and I find it really concerning that the same issues around getting a place at a school is as fraught now as it was when we were faced with the decision of which secondary school to choose for her six years ago.
Then, as now, she could not get a place at a choice of schools - just the one, which wasn’t the nearest. We weren’t in a position to move house to put ourselves in the right catchment area but if we had been able to and we had realised the battle we would face we would have made that move. Not sure if that would have made us one of the dishonest ones or just parents who want to get the right school and the best education for their child.
Let’s stop worrying about who is cheating the system and let’s start looking at why getting a school place isn’t working for parents or children.
What Dr Craig fails to mention is just how many school places are obtained by deception just that there is a suggestion that it is a significant problem.
How many school places are allocated each year? I am guessing inthe thousands and of these how many are btained by deception? And how is this known?
Agree with Sarah. What a lot of time looking at the ‘bad’ parents and not enough time helping all parents by investing in all our schools and making them better schools for our children.
I am semi retired now but spent all of my career working in schools in inner London - back in the days of ILEA (Innner London Education Authority). I clearly remember my colleagues in the education sector being alarmed at the number of amalgamations and closures of schools that came with the demise of ILEA and I am sure that this alarm was felt across the country with the reforms of education authorities.
Twenty years later and we now do not have enough places in the schools parents and their children want. Who is responsible for this appalling lack of planning and why is nothing seemingly being done about it?
We know four years in advance what the birth rate is for each new school year. Surely this is enough time to plan ahead even allowing for some demographic changes. Not enough time to plan? - then let’s stop forcing our children to start school at four years old. Given another year or two our children will be better prepared for formal education and schools will be better prepared to offer a place to all those who want one at their school.
Agree with much of waht has been written but surprised no one has mentioned the comments made by Lee. I’m sure in some areas immigration is having a detrimental effect on the number of school places available but in real terms this should not be seen as an excuse for Government locally or nationally.
The village I lived in ten years ago more than doubled in population when a new estate of houses was built within the village boundaries and the catchment area of the village school resulting in not enough school places for existing or new residents. Immigration did not even come into the equation.
Obviously existing residents with children already at school had priority for any subsequent children on the grounds of sibling criteria. My daughter did not have a sibling and so was competing with children who had recently arrived in the vilage. She ended up in a primary school two villages away and the fourth nearest to our home. The allocation of school places is unfair but this should not be blamed on immigration but as Sue has said on bad planning.
I see we have racism rearing its head here! Thanks, Lee. There is always one to blame ‘the immigrants’. Actually they often have the toughest time getting any school place for their children,least of all a place at one of the sought after, over subscribed schools, even if it is on their doorstep, quite literally! It is the articulate English middle classes which are adept at ‘beating the system’ whilst the immigrants, often treated like half wits, are the ones fobbed off with - ‘oh there will never be a place at this school for your child but your child can travel 10 miles to another school, that will be ok’. Schools and education authorities alike are extremely good at giving the ‘can’t speak any English’ lot the run around. I see it all the time, I work in education and a lot of the time I am ashamed at what can be done to people who don’t know the system, believe what they are told and get minmum help with appealing a decision.
On a different topic, I totally agree with Sue when she says children would be better prepared for education if they started at a later age. However, I am sure lots of parents would be in uproar at losing their free childcare, which is often what school is taken for (by parents and government alike).
I concur with the previous comments. The issue about parental deception is just a symptom or reaction to the inequality of education available to our children. What parent doesn’t want the best for their child? The questions minsters should be asking and answering is why aren’t all schools providing an excellent standard of education? Poorly performing schools should be recruiting the very best and if necessary paying attractive recruitment and retention payments. Those of us faced with sending our children to poorly performing schools despair - why should a postcode or unequal selection system determine whether your child gets the education that ALL children deserve.
I would do anything if i thought I could get away with it , to get my child into the school of my choice. Why not? I work very hard with overtime but with both my husband and i on a minimum wage as carers we are already excluded from the choice of private education open to those who earn more than the basic, and so we have to enter the lottery of the school system. aren’t we also victims of the two tier schooling system in this country ,Surely we should be allowed to beat the system in a varity of ways rather than just monetry. I dont think its racist either to point out facts like since we’ve gone into europe there are more children quite legally resident in this country , there are children quite legally resident here as well as asylum seekers , but this has resulted in a greater strain on the places available within the schools.
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