First primary school allocation worry

kingfisherblue

Andypandyboy wrote: »

I am not sure how long ago this was, but rule changes mean that schools have absolutely no discretion now. They have to follow to the letter the published criteria, they have to use a computer program to work out catchment areas. They have to be completely transparent, if they are not, any appeal will succeed and it would mean that a class of 30 becomes a class of 31 or more and the school would have to personally fund a second teacher.

I think it did go on years ago, but it wouldn't happen now, parents are much more appeal savvy and schools could not take the risk.

It's quite a few years ago now - my youngest is sitting his GCSEs this year, and my older son was 18 yesterday.

I believe that there is much more competition for school places these days. I'm glad that it wasn't like this years ago.

msb5262

Just sent the following:
I would like to report this thread or post because I can't believe MSE picked up such a racist OP to start off a thread about school places! Please reconsider and remove this.

silvercar

they then split the year groups for year 1, year 1/2 and year 2 to keep classes to the 30.. based on age rather than ability.

Some people are unhappy with this idea. So some of the children in the year 1 class move to year 1/2 and others straight to year 2. Likewise some children (those in year 1/2 class) will be taught in a mixed year group class and others won't.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

DonPoppleton wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. The ofstead report is very poor, way under national average in every catagory. Only 43% speak English, itchas a rating of 2. 54% acieve the maths score where average is 80% only 10% reach the maths level the average point score is 25.5 and 42% on free school meals, thats ofstead talking not me. As for the comment regarding racism, thats very unfair as its an ofstead comment. So are ofstead racists? Very unfair.

If they can speak two languages and still be able to learn maths to that extent, I'd say those kids are probably smarter than yours. And 42% on FSM isn't a bad ratio - we have higher results on over 50% and the vast majority using English as a second (third, fourth or fifth) language, compared to the poor, white, children.

Guess it's just the smarter families that move over here. Just as well they do, or the results would be appalling.

pigpen

silvercar wrote: »

Some people are unhappy with this idea. So some of the children in the year 1 class move to year 1/2 and others straight to year 2. Likewise some children (those in year 1/2 class) will be taught in a mixed year group class and others won't.

Given the nature of teaching which is very much geared towards the individual child they are all thriving.

Some people just like something to whine about! And the children don't care.. so long as they are happy, settled and progressing that is the only thing that matters.

How is it any different to splitting children into academic years Sept-Aug? It might be deemed unfair if it was done on ability.. so a parent could then become upset their child was 'stupid' .. This year they took the children from year 1 whose birthdays were in the Autumn term and put them with the summer term children of year 2.. so instead of being split into 2x 3 term age groups they are split into 3x 2 term age groups.. it is really no different to any other split between classes.

Year 2 has children born Sept 2008-April 2009
Year 1/2 has children born May 2009 - Dec 2009
Year 1 class has children Jan 2010 - August 2010

My daughter is the youngest child over the 3 classes so next year probably will be in the mixed year group.. so what? She has been in the single year group the last 2 years. She is confident and happy and steaming through the work. She is way ahead of all the year 1 children in Maths, one of the top 5 for reading though her writing needs practise (its hard work being a lefty!).. but if she wasn't it still wouldn't matter because they can't all excel, I have had children really struggle with school so experienced both ends of the spectrum.


It also means the classes have around 27/28 children in who are then split into 4 groups and taught as very small groups..

It actually works out really nicely, the children have an outdoor play area so all 3 classes mingle and form friendships and they are all taught based on ability and interest.

As a child who was always in the year group above the age group... long term.. the only difference it made to me was that my friends all went up to junior school without me and then up to high school without me..

FBaby

My DS was almost allocated such a school when we moved in the area because the three closest schools to us were all oversuscribed (by kids living further away). In the end, he was allocated another school not culturally rich but still under special measures.

That was when he moved to Y4. Within months, they appointed a new Head and the school turned around so much in two years that it ended up with better SATS results than our local school at the end of Y6.

DS made friend with a boy as he took the bus to school who found himself in the same situation, except he didn't even get into DS school, so ended up in the culturally diverse one with the worse results. They are now in the same class in Year 8 at the local Secondary School and he and my DS both are amongst the 5 top pupils this year.

I do totally understand the anxiety of finding yourself in this situation and I understand that it is easy to look back and think that these were unfunded, but at the same time, it is worth taking a more general approach to the situation and at least consider the school. It's when I went to visit DS school and met with the Headteacher that I realised it wouldn't be the end of the world.

silvercar

pigpen wrote: »

How is it any different to splitting children into academic years Sept-Aug? It might be deemed unfair if it was done on ability.. so a parent could then become upset their child was 'stupid' .. This year they took the children from year 1 whose birthdays were in the Autumn term and put them with the summer term children of year 2.. so instead of being split into 2x 3 term age groups they are split into 3x 2 term age groups.. it is really no different to any other split between classes.

Year 2 has children born Sept 2008-April 2009
Year 1/2 has children born May 2009 - Dec 2009
Year 1 class has children Jan 2010 - August 2010

My daughter is the youngest child over the 3 classes so next year probably will be in the mixed year group.. so what? She has been in the single year group the last 2 years. She is confident and happy and steaming through the work. She is way ahead of all the year 1 children in Maths, one of the top 5 for reading though her writing needs practise (its hard work being a lefty!).. but if she wasn't it still wouldn't matter because they can't all excel, I have had children really struggle with school so experienced both ends of the spectrum.


It also means the classes have around 27/28 children in who are then split into 4 groups and taught as very small groups..

It actually works out really nicely, the children have an outdoor play area so all 3 classes mingle and form friendships and they are all taught based on ability and interest.

The big difference from the children's point of view is that they won't move through the school as a class, each year there some will be split off to join the older or younger group.

From an educational point of view, there are bound to be times when the teacher is concentrating on teaching the other year group in the same class.

lush_walrus

My opinion is people are being overly alarmist about the OPs concerns. We all know we are a culturally rich society, we all also know that we are a hybrid of people as far back as you can go but the situation in current years is very different to those gone before us. Most parents also feel very responsible for their child's education and worry and stress about the smallest thing. After all we are all making a decision on behalf of someone else that has a massive affect.

The levels of immigration at the moment are huge, not all coming in or having children are blessed with two languages some are not. Some children their first language is their only language and that is it English.

When starting a new school parents of course do not know what children are attending, Ofsted provides the last known positon and does not distinguish children who can speak English from those who can not - and there in lays the concern for some parents. If a child is starting school at 4 or 5 without a basic command of English then that can be accommodated but if 15 of the 30 can not then that is a worry for any parent of any nationality.

Interestingly I have seen this situation in reverse. One of my best friends was born in India, her daughter is the same age as one of mine and so when she started nursery naturally she went to our daughters. After a few months (and they were babies at the time) she told me she was moving her daughter to another nursery. The reason why - because as she put it she wanted her to be with other Indian children and our nursery had no others. Is that racist? I didn't see it as such and understood she wanted some of her history and culture retained.

People are too too quick to shout an Ism out and in my opinion it totally undervalues it.

pigpen

silvercar wrote: »

The big difference from the children's point of view is that they won't move through the school as a class, each year there some will be split off to join the older or younger group.

From an educational point of view, there are bound to be times when the teacher is concentrating on teaching the other year group in the same class.

Had you read my other posts you would see there is more than 1 teacher in each class and it is perfectly normal for a classroom assistant to take a group of 6 or 7 children to complete a task set by the teacher.

That just increases their friendship circle.. they were in nursery in just this manner it is perfectly normal to them it is only a small number of parents who get hysterical over it.. the children take everything in their stride and get on with learning.. like I said, some parents just like having something to moan about, even when their children are doing well!! ... it is uniforms that set me off


LushWalrus... that is fine wanting your child to experience their own culture, I bet there were other reasons too though .. it was the wording used by the OP.. different 'kind' of child?? Not wanting his grandson mixing with that 'type of person', not the environment wanted for his grandchild .. that is what made it racist. etc... I am sure if your friend was perfectly happy with the nursery she would have found ways to keep her child involved with Indian culture through other sources, there are loads of multi-cultural groups here and even our childrens centres have sessions set aside for people of specific nationalities so they can retain their individual cultures.. they don't exclude others so if I wanted to go to the Congolese group I could .. I have been tempted tbh, they are wonderful, singing and dancing and music and beautiful creative crafts. They lady who runs it was a governor at a local primary school and I met her through that.

LannieDuck

Your grandson probably got rejected from his schools of choice due to the admissions criteria and oversubscription. It's very hard to appeal primary school places if the admissions criteria have been followed correctly, so I would go back to the beginning and check whether your daughter fully explored all the local schools when making her application.

You may not like the one grandson has been allocated, but are there any others locally that would be suitable and aren't normally over subscribed? You can get the stats on admissions for the previous year from the LA. Mine were published on the website, but the stats for our neighbouring LA weren't - we had to e-mail to request them.

Perhaps there's a school your daughter didn't previously consider that might be suitable and which might have places remaining? (The school my daughter's been allocated (with a Good Ofsted rating) was our first choice, but has been undersubscribed for the last two years. It's worth looking around.) Check over LA boundaries too if appropriate.