'Bias the poor' to stop middle class domination in schools says watchdog

Bias: An official watchdog calls for social engineering to prevent the middle-classes dominating the best state schools
12 April 2012

Schools should show "bias" in admissions to poorer children to prevent middle-class parents dominating the best state schools, according to an official watchdog.

Canon Richard Lindley said fairer ways of allocating places included lotteries and pupil banding where schools ensure they take a spread of abilities.

The schools adjudicator said such schemes were still in "experimental" stages but had the potential to prevent wealthy families buying expensive homes in the catchment areas of good secondary schools to ensure a place.

He even suggested they could eventually replace the sibling rule, which allows younger children to attend the same school as their older brothers and sisters.

The admissions chief went on to criticise practice at some church schools, criticising one unnamed school in the north for setting 38 different admissions criteria.

Canon Lindley sparked a furore last year after ruling in favour of a controversial Brighton-wide admissions system which will decide some secondary places by computer lottery.

Critics of random allocation claim it flies in the face of parental choice over children's education by leaving school places to chance.

Canon Lindley is part of a team of independent adjudicators responsible for ensuring schools follow the Government's new admissions code, which backs the use of lotteries and banding as systems for allocating places at over-subscribed schools.

Any signal from the adjudicators that ballots and banding will be looked on favourably is certain to prompt schools and local authorities across the country to look at introducing them.

Canon Lindley told a seminar attended by council chiefs and heads that school admissions could be used to "compensate" for social disadvantage.

"What is sometimes called a bias to the poor," he said.

"We can sometimes think of methodology which will restore something of a balance within communities," he told the Westminster Education Forum seminar.

"One is that of banding which seems, for secondary schools, to hold the possibility of greater social equity and educational opportunity for children of all elements, all stages in their development and degrees of attainment and secondly, the potential that ballots hold for deciding rather than other over-subscription criteria or tie-breakers."

He added: "It is as yet, of course, in an experimental stage, but seems to hold the possibility for greater justice and avoidance particularly of favouring those who are able to buy houses in the immediate proximity of schools."

Canon Lindley said that giving priority to pupils who live closer to a school "seemed to be innocuous and helpful" but could be unfair to many families.

"Distance measuring for instance, is clearly unfair for some parents in the context of their travel potential and possibilities," he said.

And he added: "And even siblings can be unfair in terms of poverty and wealth when, in particular areas of the country, a number of children that a family produces can relate either to wealth or to poverty."

Growing numbers of local authorities and self-governing schools are already experimenting with computer ballots to allocate places when over-subscribed.

These include Brighton, Hertfordshire and the sought-after comprehensive Lady Margaret in West London.

Meanwhile ability banding inolves testing pupils at 11 and placing them in bands on the basis of their results. Schools take a quota of children from each ability grouping.

However banding systems can cause upset if children could be forced to travel miles away from their nearest preferred school if it has filled its ability bands.

Such schemes entail moving away from traditional catchment areas where applicants are whittled down by distance from the school gates.

Canon Lindley went on to say "some" but "not all" church schools were operating unfair admissions systems.

He said he was aware of one which had introduced 38 admissions criteria.

"Now that is not acceptable and local authorities and admissions forums [groups representing all local schools] need to be doing something," he said.

His remarks follow a call from the chief schools adjudicator, Dr Philip Hunter, for schools and local authorities to face down objections from "articulate" families and extend lottery systems to more areas.

He said in his latest annual report that sought-after state schools must be prevented from "creaming off" the brightest pupils.

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