
State School place allocations
Access into primary and secondary state schools in the UK is decided on catchment areas, and proximity to the school (distance away, as the crow flies).
Not sure how many children fly to school, however most I know walk, cycle or are given a lift by road, which is usually considerably different to as the crow flies. But this is the system councils use. Because although perhaps not fair, it is the easiest.
What happens up and down the country is that families are simply moving into catchment areas which are close to good schools solely so they can get their children into these schools.
The definition of where a family lives is not whether they are a homeowner, but simply where they live. This includes being a tenant and renting a room/property. In the past it has also included families who have rented additional accommodation for 6 months or so in order they can show an address close to the school. To cheat the system.
The much bigger problem is if you have a family from Eastern Europe (for the sake of argument) who have just arrived in the UK, cannot speak the language and have rented a flat for six months (and that rented flat is 50m closer to the school than a family that have owned their house), then that school child will automatically be given priority over the house owner’s child.
Just over two years ago we had to go to appeal to get our son into his local school. We have owned our house for the last 25 years, and have paid council tax (Band E) for 25 years. My son was born locally, and of course is fluent in English (and Japanese). Both my daughters went to the local school. Every year, all children within catchment area were allocated a place. Until 2006.
This is due primarily to the huge amount of immigration (+48% increase of Eastern Europeans compared to the National average of +6% post EU referendum).
There are three grounds on which appeals can be successful:
The school’s admission arrangements do not comply with the law and if they did your child would have been offered a place
A mistake has been made with your child’s application and if it had been handled properly your child would have been offered a place
The refusal of a place was unreasonable, taking the admissions arrangements into account
Submitted our application in October 2015. Advised our son had not got in, was 10th in the queue and was allocated a very poorly performing school. Subsequently advised that the good school had added an extra class of 30, and that our son had moved up to 7th in the queue. Asked how that could be, advised by admissions that our son had still not got in because 27 new children had moved into the area.
The appeals process (a legal one) was long drawn out, and at the initial meeting (with approximately 190 appealing) there were many people who did not speak English, each requiring translators (provided for and the costs met by the council taxpayers) which meant not only were the cunts pushing it, it took fucking ages for the cunts to understand what was required, plus the fact that the locals were paying for their translators.
Of the 190 appeals, 4 were successful, of which we were one. I submitted an extremely comprehensive argument as to why our son should attend (we had to demonstrate that it would be a greater disadvantage to our son not going was greater than the schools disadvantage by having him). Thankfully we had a very nice panel who were a similar age to me, local people and very understanding of our situation), helped very much by the fact our son is excellent academically, plays county level sport and good at music. Without this he would have struggled. We were finally advised of this at the end of June 2016. Nearly 8 months after the initial application.
The main reason I (and suspect millions of others) voted for Brexit was because of the total injustice and unfairness of everything that is happening to British people, that this particular (and highly important) system is open to abuse by pretty much everyone (British and immigrants alike), and that many places are being taken up by immigrant families who have not waited years in line like the rest of us, have not paid a penny piece into the system, who cannot speak the language and who simply not be here.
Why not operate a first come, first served basis of allocation? Where a child’s name is added to the school list when they are born, and if still in the area at the time of going to the school, those who have waited in line and are still in the area get first choice. Seems fair to me.
But putting local people first? Will never happen, the EU (and others) would simply never permit it.
Apologies for the rant fellow cunters. Several years later it still makes me fucking furious just thinking about it, and that the same system is still fucking local people and their children’s futures.
Nominated by willie stroker