The Association of School and College Leaders today proposes a
potential change to school admissions in England to give priority
to places for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
It is among a series of measures in our Blueprint for a Fairer
Education System which also includes reforms to SATs, GCSEs
and the national curriculum.
The proposals are aimed at closing the long-standing gap in the
attainment of children from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to
their peers.
It is estimated that this gap will take over 500 years to close
at the current rate and that this bleak picture has been
exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our blueprint suggests a review of school admissions to consider
the potential benefits of requiring schools to prioritise in
their oversubscription criteria places for children who are
eligible for the pupil premium or are in persistent poverty.
There is already a similar requirement for children in care.
The proposal is designed to address the fact that popular schools
rated as outstanding or good by Ofsted are often oversubscribed
and located in middle-class areas which can make places at these
schools hard to access for pupils from disadvantaged communities.
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said: “Middle-class parents have the buying
power to afford homes in areas near popular schools that are
rated as good or outstanding. We may not necessarily agree with
the way that Ofsted ratings work but this is the reality.
“There are, of course, many excellent schools in disadvantaged
areas too, but the economics of property ownership mean that
disadvantaged families don’t have the same access as middle-class
parents to certain schools. This is an entrenched injustice which
reinforces an unhealthy division between affluent and
disadvantaged areas and children.
“We have to do more to support schools in challenging
circumstances, so that there is a school rated as good or
outstanding on every doorstep, but we must also see how we might
provide parents and children from disadvantaged backgrounds with
fairer access to popular schools in more affluent areas.
“This is something we can do sooner rather than later without
waiting for slow incremental change or spending huge amounts of
money. We recognise this suggestion would require detailed
consideration about exactly how a change of this nature to the
school admissions code
would work, but we believe the possibilities are worth exploring.
“A government which constantly talks about levelling up should
certainly give this serious consideration.”
Other recommendations in our blueprint include:
- Review the national curriculum to ensure it focuses on fewer
things in greater depth and leaves enough space in the school day
for schools to develop their own complementary local curriculum,
and make this core curriculum mandatory for all state schools.
- Replace Key Stage 2 SATs taken by children towards the end of
primary school with adaptive assessments which make greater use
of technology to ensure assessments are more intelligent and
personalised, and enable all children to demonstrate what they
can do.
- Reform GCSEs to reduce the massive number of terminal exams
taken by pupils during their final summer at secondary school by
reintroducing some ongoing assessment over the course of a
qualification and making greater use of technology in assessment.
- Extend the pupil premium for supporting disadvantaged pupils
to include 16-19 year olds, and reform funding for pupils who
have special educational needs so that the system is simpler,
clearer and better resourced.
- Overhaul school performance tables so that they provide
parents with a broad range of measures beyond exam and assessment
results and take in aspects like exclusion rates and the breadth
of the curriculum that is provided.
Mr Barton said: “These proposals are deliberately designed to be
eminently do-able. They build on what is largely a good education
system with targeted proposals which we believe would make the
system work better for all children and young people.
“We propose streamlining the cluttered curriculum, modernising
assessment and exams, providing extra funding for the children
and young people who most need that support, and making school
performance tables more meaningful for parents and pupils.
“There’s nothing new about the attainment gap between rich and
poor. We’ve been talking about it for years. But we’re still not
making anything like the progress that is needed in closing that
gap and we can’t expect to keep doing the same thing and expect
different results. It is time for change.”
