By Lucy Phillips
12 April 2010
A leading social mobility charity has denounced the schools admission policies of both Labour and the Conservatives.
A report published today by the Sutton Trust says that ballots are the fairest way to allocate oversubscribed places at secondary schools. Labour’s current admissions code is failing to address social segregation problems and Tory reforms to create a new cadre of independently run state schools would be unlikely to resolve this.
In the foreword to the report, Worlds apart: social variation among schools, Sutton Trust chair Sir Peter Lampl said: ‘There has to be some way of choosing which pupils are admitted, and ballots offer the same chances to all children irrespective of their background.’ Such random allocation could be used in conjunction with other criteria, such as ability, faith or location, but ultimately would lead to a ‘more equitable education system’.
The study found that current admissions processes contributed to social segregation among pupils in England because some parents were able to find loopholes, such as buying a house or joining a particular faith, to get their children in to the desired school. Despite government efforts to enforce tighter policies, the researchers conclude: ‘There is still wriggle room for schools that want to ensure a favourable intake to enable them to show up well in league tables.’
Professor Alan Smithers, author of the report and director of the Centre for Education and Employment research at the University of Buckingham, told Public Finance that Labour had ‘tried very hard’ but an admissions code ‘becomes more and more complicated and that may not be the way to do it’. He added: ‘The simpler and fairer way to bring about a greater mix would be to have allocation on the basis of a random ballot.’
Conservative proposals to allow parents to set up and run schools were likely to result in even more segregation because ‘if parents move to set up a school they will be particularly interested in their own children and children like their own children’, Smithers said.
But he admitted that while such a balloting system would ‘lead to a better integration of society’, it would take a very skilled politician ‘to persuade all parents that it’s a good idea because some parents will feel they have lost control of the system they can operate by house purchases, faith or ferrying their children to and from school’.
The report reveals that the country’s leading 164 comprehensive schools are more socially exclusive than England’s remaining 164 grammar schools. The comprehensives took only 9.2% of children from deprived backgrounds compared with grammars, which took 13.5%. Both types of schools were drawing pupils from areas where about 20% of families were judged deprived. Of the 100 most socially selective schools in the country, 91 were comprehensives, 8 were grammars and there was one secondary modern.
12 April 2010
A leading social mobility charity has denounced the schools admission policies of both Labour and the Conservatives.
A report published today by the Sutton Trust says that ballots are the fairest way to allocate oversubscribed places at secondary schools. Labour’s current admissions code is failing to address social segregation problems and Tory reforms to create a new cadre of independently run state schools would be unlikely to resolve this.
In the foreword to the report, Worlds apart: social variation among schools, Sutton Trust chair Sir Peter Lampl said: ‘There has to be some way of choosing which pupils are admitted, and ballots offer the same chances to all children irrespective of their background.’ Such random allocation could be used in conjunction with other criteria, such as ability, faith or location, but ultimately would lead to a ‘more equitable education system’.
The study found that current admissions processes contributed to social segregation among pupils in England because some parents were able to find loopholes, such as buying a house or joining a particular faith, to get their children in to the desired school. Despite government efforts to enforce tighter policies, the researchers conclude: ‘There is still wriggle room for schools that want to ensure a favourable intake to enable them to show up well in league tables.’
Professor Alan Smithers, author of the report and director of the Centre for Education and Employment research at the University of Buckingham, told Public Finance that Labour had ‘tried very hard’ but an admissions code ‘becomes more and more complicated and that may not be the way to do it’. He added: ‘The simpler and fairer way to bring about a greater mix would be to have allocation on the basis of a random ballot.’
Conservative proposals to allow parents to set up and run schools were likely to result in even more segregation because ‘if parents move to set up a school they will be particularly interested in their own children and children like their own children’, Smithers said.
But he admitted that while such a balloting system would ‘lead to a better integration of society’, it would take a very skilled politician ‘to persuade all parents that it’s a good idea because some parents will feel they have lost control of the system they can operate by house purchases, faith or ferrying their children to and from school’.
The report reveals that the country’s leading 164 comprehensive schools are more socially exclusive than England’s remaining 164 grammar schools. The comprehensives took only 9.2% of children from deprived backgrounds compared with grammars, which took 13.5%. Both types of schools were drawing pupils from areas where about 20% of families were judged deprived. Of the 100 most socially selective schools in the country, 91 were comprehensives, 8 were grammars and there was one secondary modern.
