Alistair Owens http://www.keen2learn.co.uk

The recent cycle of school applications, as parents seek selection to the best primary school or secondary school for their children, has become an annual educational game. Many parents, and children, enter a world of anxiety, manipulation, luck and deceit as places at the ideal choice of school become restricted. A growing number of parents are appealing against their failed selection, and educational authorities are resorting to a lottery system to reach a far from ideal solution.

A staggering 86,000 parents have appealed against their failure to gain a place at their preferred primary or secondary school. Schools in turn, overwhelmed by the increase in applications have resorted to random allocations through a lottery for school places at their school. This six fold increase in the practice over last year has become a necessity due to the higher number of applicants. Swelled by a baby boom, immigration and the transfer of children from independent schools by parents seeking to reduce costs; schools are on the back foot. Is this a fair outcome for the children involved? Instead of fighting a lost cause many parents are investing more of their own time at home to supplement their children’s classroom activities. The teaching resources used in class are now available for parents support at home. These educational games cover all subjects of the National Curriculum, are great fun and help boost the learning retention that may be otherwise lost with the allocation of their school.

Education authorities have seen the onset of the legal profession enter the fray. Lawyers have been appointed to pursue failed applications. Hired by parents transferring children from the independent sector, and using some of the cash saved, this crass approach is of concern to the educational authorities now forced to defend their decision. Along with a multitude of shenanigans being used by parents to secure places at preferred schools it manifests a serious flaw in the ethics of our society. A child may gain a place at a good school at the expense of a more worthy candidate based purely on the cash involved or misrepresentation of the facts. The legal profession is unlikely to refuse the offer of the contract. Thus in a similar fashion to the lawyer with a penchant for defending  celebrities caught speeding, we will ultimately see legal bodies specialising in educational place cases. And this is a terrible state of affairs. Cash, time and effort will be wasted whilst schools defend their rightful decision to select their intake.

Our faltering educational programme has tempted some parents to manipulate their address or rent a house ( left unoccupied) that provides an address falling within a desired catchment area, change religion to enter a faith school or mysteriously make grandparents living in the area responsible for the upbringing of their grandchildren. And councils have had to foot the bill to conduct the investigations to seek the truth.

The losers are the children. If they gained a place through subterfuge or cheating, or were displaced by someone who did, this is an awful a start to their educational journey. Part of the National Curriculum covers personal, social and health education- PSHE. The schools ironically now have practical examples to teach about bullying from manipulative parents, and a great new game of how to calculate the maths probability of a place at the school.