School Choice: Dr Huq's School of Hard Knocks

Dr Huq has been selling her body of knowledge over at Harry's Place. Essentially reflecting parental anxiety over school places, sink school, free school dinners, and statemented kids.

What a media tart she is getting to be! Here's my comment:

Having met some of the Ealing massive and their rising 4s I understand the problem described here by school governor and former PPC "Rubina" Huq.

It just struck me as I listened to their plaints that getting together and piling into the so-called "sink" schools you were allocated under a transparently fair and fully advanced system would "turn them round" or at least raise their statistical performance.

When I asked whether these anxious parents had looked at the Ofsted reports for the allocated schools I found that they had not done so.

When I asked whether these anxious parents had checked the applicable distances last year for their target schools and chosen accordingly I found that they had not.

When I asked these anxious parents whether they had even used all three of their choices, never mind wisely, I found that some of them had not even done that. OMG! FGS!

When I asked these anxious parents whether they had chosen their addresses very carefully I found that some had moved very recently but ended up 200 metres too far away - 500 instead of 300 metres. Which is missing by a mile if you're that serious about such things.

And while some of the parents had actively sought work-rounds e.g. nan's addresses they were willing to start a campaign of outing parents who had found rellies willing to play along, or temporary rented accommodation or whatever it was.

We were right to oppose SATs - particularly when young kids are coached to within an inch of their young lives to keep the school economy healthy.

We should also make sure parents understand the purpose of value-added measurements and their superiority to absolutes for measuring schools.

And also the sheer stupidity of using the numbers of free school meals or statemented kids as measures of school genius levels.

In Finland they don't even go to "big school" until they are about 7 years old and they stay in the same school to 16 and they do very very well indeed.

No faith schools AFAIK, mixed education, no publically announced intermediate exam grades, every school a good school.

Parental choice IS a bit of a sham really. Other means of allocation need to be used unless they are LOADS of school places perceived as good enough for little dears and there have to be loads of surplus spaces or infinitely flexible intakes for this counsel of perfection to become reality.

This is ridiculous! This is unnecessary anxiety to the point of suicide! Kids are very durable and find their own level almost wherever they go to school.

There are some appalling instances of mistakes at my kids' schools but by and large they are winning more than they're losing and will do just fine. One of mine was put in completely the wrong science set for example and may miss doing two extra GCSEs as a result. One child was just moved UP into the A or A* set, having got an E, to make room for some B kids to move down.

The head of science should be taken to one side and taught Newton's laws. What goes up must come down being perhaps the best one for her particular case.

But I digress.

My kids are also I think more likely to make the subject choices they want in the NEAREST STATE SCHOOLS that they have always gone to than they would have done under some brain grading centre of excellence, independent, or vestigial state selective with less vocational options. Nonetheless they will have enough and good enough academics to change tack if they wish to.

First appeared as a comment at Harry's