Memorandum submitted by Professor John
Coldron
Summary
1. Some of the main concerns and issues around admission
policies are parental satisfaction, equitability, effects on school
intake and composition, whether they help or hinder collaboration,
efficiency in the use of resources, and effects of travel on the
urban environment.
2. While in England as a whole the great majority
of parents receive offers for a place in a school with which they
are satisfied more problems are experienced in urban areas and
these can be very some in some hot spots with London having particular
problems.
3. Polarisation of parental perception of schools
is the main reason for the admission crisis in particular hot-spots.
4. There are pressures towards segregation especially
in areas where there is polarisation of perception. The fact that
these pressures have not resulted in significant segregation does
not mean the pressures are not there.
5. For parents who engage in the choice process the
most important ingredient of choice (together with practical considerations)
is the intake of the school.
6. The majority of parents want their children to
go to a good local school.
7. It is still true in most areas that where you
live largely determines the school your child will attend.
8. Anxiety is generated when access to acceptable
schools is unpredictable and the process is complex or literally
unmanageable.
9. Some schools use admission arrangements to manage
their intake so as to increase their proportion of easier to educate
children.
10. Specialist school status in itself is not likely
to lead to a change in the intake of a school relative to others
in an area but the unilateral use of the option to select, probably
would.
11. School procedures for testing for aptitude reflect
a high level of control and a low level of accountability on the
part of schools.
1. Some of the concerns and issues around admissions
policies
1.1 Parental satisfaction: Parents and
their children may experience high levels of anxiety about admission
procedures to secondary school through unpredictability and delay
about final decisions. As to outcomes, the majority of parents
feel strongly about which school their children attend and may
feel desperate when their preferences are not met. Some of the
more powerful reasons for choice are fear about the quality of
education and about the moral and physical safety of their children
at particular schools; sincere beliefs about the need for their
child to be educated in accordance with religious or moral principles;
and practical issues of family organisation, like childcare, that
if disrupted by school admission can cause great personal difficulty.
1.2 Equitability: A major dilemma is whether
an admissions policy should provide equality of opportunity for
parents to gain access to what are perceived to be unequal schools
or whether instead it should attempt to mitigate the unequal educational
performance of schools consequent on the social segregation of
intake by balancing intakes or in some other way. An unavoidable
problem is that choice for some parents (e.g. to attend a school
other than their nearest school) reduces the choice for others
(e.g. those who live close to the school).
1.3 School intake/composition: Admissions
policies directly affect the composition of the school intake
which in turn is closely associated with certain measures of school
performance. Because of the nature of their intake some schools
have a relatively difficult task in many ways (Thrupp 1999) including
to educate the same proportion of their pupils to similar attainment
levels. This is most obviously true of grammar and secondary modern
schools whose admissions criteria, despite other concerns, are
transparent, familiar and well understood. Some admission arrangements
may allow a less transparent form of selection of intake by schools
that results in segregation on the basis of socio-economic status
or ethnicity or attainment. This has currently focused on the
partially selective procedures such as the selective option of
Specialist schools but schools can also exercise selection in
other ways for example through catchment areas or religious criteria.
The way parents choose schools is also a significant pressure
towards segregation of school intake.
1.4 Collaboration and competition: There
is currently an emphasis on collaboration as a means of spreading
good practice and improving schools. Admission arrangements, and
the kinds of relations they encourage or discourage between schools,
may hinder or help the growth of collaboration. Particularly salient
is the level of competition in relevant areas to attract easier
to educate children.
1.5 Efficiency: Admission arrangements
can and do absorb a great deal of resource on the part of schools,
local authorities and central government. This includes spending
on managing the preference system and the school stock to accommodate
all preferences and the level of appeals that result. Some systems
may be more cost effective than others.
1.6 Concern for the urban environment:
there is an issue of wider environmental concern. Some admission
arrangements may lead to greater travel within already congested
urban areas. There is some responsibility to try, wherever possible,
to reduce rather than increase the problems caused by the 'school
run'.
2. The management of admissions in England
2.1 In England the local management of admissions
has led to a great variety of arrangements (Williams et al 2001;
White et al 2001). Although all publicly maintained schools (and
this includes Foundation and Voluntary Aided schools) are bound
by a common code of practice determined by central government
(DfEE 1999; and, from 2004/5 DfEE 2003), the history, geography
and politics of different locations have had a considerable effect
on the adoption of particular admission arrangements in an area.
2.2 There has been a sense of seasonal crisis
concerning school admissions (O'Reilly and Ludlow 2002). Some
schools are inundated with applications while others cannot fill
the places they offer (Coldron et al 2002). Appeals for secondary
school places are rising year on year (DfES 2001).
Table 1: Admission appeals secondary schools:
appeals lodged and heard against non-admission of children to
maintained primary schools in England 1995/96 - 1999/01
| 95/96
| 96/97 | 97/98
| 98/99 | 99/00
| 00/01 |
| Appeals lodged as a % of total admissions
| 6.0 | 6.7
| 7.6 | 8.7
| 9.6 | 10.3
|
| Appeals heard as a % of total admissions
| 4.3 | 4.9
| 5.5 | 6.3
| 7.0 | 7.5
|
However looking at the figures for England as a whole, talk of
crisis seems like an exaggeration. In a recent project on which
we worked with the Office for National Statistics it was found
that ninety two percent of parents gained a place in the secondary
school for which they had expressed first preference (Flatley
and Williams 2001). Ninety six per cent of parents are offered
a place in a school for which they have expressed some preference.
A third of unsuccessful parents gain entry on appeal (DfEE 2002).
In addition, the study found that once their children had been
at secondary school for nearly a year a third of these previously
dissatisfied parents said they were more satisfied. Therefore
the evidence strongly suggests that somewhere between 3% and 4%
of parents each year are left lastingly dissatisfied with the
outcome of the admission process. A greater proportion is dissatisfied
with the process (about 15%).
2.3 However the global picture glosses over the problem of
local hot-spots. Problems of school admissions are not evenly
spread over the country. Taking appeals for secondary places as
an indicator, rural areas have relatively few problems with only
5% of appeals heard, while metropolitan areas have 9% and London
nearly 14% (see Table 2 for an estimate on 2001 figures). Discontent
about admissions is much more an urban phenomenon and the bigger
and more dense the population the bigger the problem.
Table 2: Appeals heard as a percentage of total admissions
2000-2001
| Rural
| Metropolitan
(inc.London)
| Metropolitan
(exc.London
| Inner London |
Outer London | All London
|
| Primary | 2.5
| 3.8 | 3.8
| 3.3 | 4.0
| 3.7 |
| Secondary | 5.0
| 10.5 | 9.1
| 16.2 | 13.5
| 14.3 |
| Combined | 3.9
| 7.1 | 6.6
| 8.5 | 8.7
| 8.6 |
2.4 There is indeed a crisis in school admissions not globally
but in particular localities. There is a crisis for those parents
who are not successful in gaining a place at a school to which
they believe they can safely send their child but for whom the
private sector is not an option. It is a crisis for the schools
which are so unpopular that their difficult job is made
much harder, and a (albeit less fateful) crisis for the schools
which are so popular that they spend a great deal of time
and energy managing the process of admissions and appeals. For
LEA admissions managers in deeply polarised areas it presents
extreme difficulties in achieving coherent regional schools provision.
3. Admissions in urban areas
3.1 A relatively large proportion of parents in urban areas
take the opportunity to apply for schools other than those closest
to home. The ONS survey (Flatley et al) found that four in ten
parents (40%) who lived in London boroughs did not apply to their
nearest state school compared with about two in ten (21%) of parents
who live in Shire authorities (see Table 3).
Table 3: Parents not applying
for place in nearest state secondary school by parental LEA type
| % not applying to nearest state school
| % | Base = N
|
| All parents
| 28 |
2170 |
| | |
| London borough
| 40 | 286
|
| Metropolitan authority
| 31 | 535
|
| Unitary authority
| 29 | 386
|
| Shire authority
| 21 | 963
|
3.2 This, in addition to the greater incidence of appeals
in urban areas is evidence of greater choice activity and levels
of dissatisfaction. Simple diversity of choice or the availability
of transport are not enough wholly to explain the greater activity
and associated dissatisfaction observed in large urban areas.
Discontent as measured by numbers of appeals is highly localised
and is often to be found at its most intense in specific areas
within boroughs. The real culprit is polarisation. I mean by polarisation
the diverse reputations of schools as perceived by the parents.
The perception that some schools are, at best, not even to be
considered, and at worst, must be avoided at all costs, while
others are highly desirable.
3.3 There has been considerable academic debate about the
impact of marketisation of admission policies on the segregation
of school intakes. Gorard et al (2002) have shown that the predictions
of some commentators (e.g. Gewirtz et al 1995; Lauder et al 1999)
that segregation would increase have not been fulfilled but it
does not follow that the latter's analysis of how parents choose
and the claim that there is pressure towards social segregation
was wrong. Market models do provide an added pressure for segregation
but it hasn't happened to any statistically significant degree.
Predictions in social contexts are, unlike predictions in the
physical sciences, hardly ever borne out because of the confounding
effects of multiple factors in open systems and people's responses
(e.g. the counter-activity of LEAs in the interests of the children
in their areas).
3.4 It is important to make a distinction between segregation
of intakes and the polarisation of parental perception concerning
schools in a particular area. It is perfectly possible to have
segregation without polarisation of perception and polarisation
of perception without segregation. However, segregation has an
effect on the performance and reputation of schools and where
parents and schools have the means, polarisation of perception
is likely to lead to greater segregation (Lauder et al 1999).
Although there is measurably greater segregation between rural
schools (Gorard 2002) in the absence of polarisation of perception
or the practical option of other schools (other than opting for
private education) there is not the same anxiety associated with
school allocation. Indeed admission officers in rural areas have
little difficulty in managing admissions and consider it to be
a problem mainly for metropolitan areas (Gorard et al 2002).
3.5 The existence of local occurrences of polarisation is
beyond doubt. This is what parents, schools and admission officers
tell us consistently. What is more a number of distinguished academics
(I am thinking here of the work of Stephen Ball, Pierre Bourdieu,
Hugh Lauder among others) have developed a sophisticated model
of parental choice that is consistent with these field accounts
and provides strong explanations for how parents make choices.
In addition to the major concerns about its effects on equity
of provision and outcomes for all children polarisation of perception
creates an imbalance in the provision of places in most preferred
and least preferred schools, high levels of dissatisfaction and
anxiety on the part of parents and children, high levels of appeals,
the vilification of some schools compared to others and a sense
of desperation on the part of some parents. Once a stampede mentality
takes hold it is very difficult for the admissions authorities
in an area to manage. Transaction costs are high and relations
between all parties are put under strain. This is a scenario repeated
in many urban areas of the country not just London (Coldron et
al 2002).
4. The importance of intake to parents
4.1 School choice decisions are based on a complex mixture
of reasons, but the evidence is overwhelming that the driver for
polarisation of perception is the difference in the social status
of the intake of schools. For parents who engage with the choice
process the most important ingredient of choice (together with
practical considerations) is the intake of the school (Ball 2003
for an overview of the evidence; Lauder et al 1999). Performance
tables, the ethos of the school, fear of bullying, fear of a drugs
culture, the quality of discipline - all reasons cited by parents
when asked about how they choose a school (Flatley et al 2001)
are either directly associated in parents minds or highly correlated
with intake (Coldron 2002) and in this sense are proxies for the
kind of people with whom their child will spend their formative
years.
4.2 There is an increased concern at the transition to secondary
with the moral and educational careers of their children, and
this is articulated with their thinking about particular areas
and their populations (Gewirtz et al 1995; Coldron and Williams
2002). This is not just snobbery. Parents really are afraid (whether
justifiably or not) for their children's moral, educational or
physical welfare.
4.3 Anxiety is generated when access to the most reassuring
and therefore popular schools is unpredictable and the admission
process is complex and unmanageable. Open enrolment, the right
of parents to state a preference, and the existence of a number
of admission authorities in an area increases unpredictability.
Prior to open enrolment, in non-selective areas, the catchment
area principle meant schools' composition reflected the local
community. In this sense the advantaged and disadvantaged nature
of different communities was reproduced and thereby reinforced
selection by mortgage. It is still true in most areas that where
you choose to live largely determines the school your child will
go to and therefore the social status of the peer group of your
son or daughter (Williams et al 2001).
4.4 The desegregation found by Stephen Gorard and John Fitz
may be considered marginal in that only a minority benefit from
it. Because of other considerations parents still want their children
to go to the local school. Nationally 28% opted for schools other
than their nearest state school and 40% opted for schools that
were not the higher performing schools in the area (Flatley et
al 2001). Without residential desegregation socially unsegregated
school intakes imply increased travel.
4.5 Having been encouraged to act as consumers those parents
who are alert, skilled and with sufficient resources (Willms and
Echols 1992; Gewirtz et al 1995; Flatley et al 2001) will more
frequently opt away from their local school and will more frequently
opt for the most popular schools with consequent oversubscription,
a greater risk of rejection and a higher level of anxiety.
4.6 The causes of polarisation are deeply rooted in our highly
stratified society and the way in which schools reflect and perpetuate
that stratification. The question is whether the benefit to some
children and their parents of opting out of their residential
communities offsets the difficulties experienced by many others
in the schools with bad reputations.
5. The importance of intake to schools
5.1 Not only do parents choose largely on the basis of intake
so do schools. There is considerable evidence (Gewirtz, Ball,
and Bowe 1995) (Glatter, Woods, and Bagley 1997; Coldron 2001)
that some schools use admission arrangements to manage their intake
so as to increase the proportion from more desirable social groups
and decrease those from less desirable. To give two vivid illustrations
of this from our own work; one school officer on the edge of a
large Northern city explained:
…We were trying to get rid of this group, because years
and years ago the school when it first formed had this bad reputation
and up until about seven years ago, about 30%, 35% of our intake
was from [the city] and we felt that was part of the problem,
that bringing sort of [city] pupils into a school like this, to
some extent they drag it down to their tone…they tend to
drag it down rather than us drag them up. The parents want to
send them to a nice school, but they don't want the school rules
to apply to their son or daughter. And we were committed with
the siblings [the interviewee means the sibling over-subscription
criterion] to a vicious circle and quite often…another terrible
intake. A lot of working class families had large families and
you were committed to them sort of…And that's one of the
reasons why they decided to get rid of the sibling link two years
ago.
Another school, this time an oversubscribed Foundation in outer
London, took 45 out of an intake of 300 (15%) on the basis of
a general ability test, something it will still be allowed to
do under the new Code (DfES 2003). It also deliberately avoided
taking harder to educate children:
What we do is always try and end up…with about 305, 306,
310…What we don't want to do is to be falling below 300 because
clearly then the local authority would ask us to take on pupils
and there are two categories that they might ask us to take. One
would be children in trouble from other schools, which would be
a bad risk…Or they are going to be children who are refugees
who have significant learning and social problems.
Such attempts at intake management in particular contexts can
contribute to greater polarisation of perception even though as
Gorard et al have shown it does not seem to have resulted in significantly
greater segregation on their measures.
6. Specialist schools procedures for assessing relative aptitude
6.1 We have already noted the motivation of some schools to
manage their intake to maximise admission of children from higher
socio-economic status families. The selective element of the specialist
programme provides another instrument for such intake management.
Specialist school status in itself does not lead to a change in
the intake of a school relative to other schools in an area. The
unilateral use of the option to select does. Where all the schools
in an area are specialist this may work to mitigate the problem.
A minority of schools are presently using the option to select
by aptitude. In general the admission criteria for specialist
schools which use the option to select 10% of their intake are
diverse, largely unaccountable and sometimes obscure. The selective
places we looked at in this study (n=61) were by definition competitive
and most were in schools that were over-subscribed.
6.2 We looked at the details of admission procedure to see
how these schools tested for aptitude in the particular subjects.
In some there was a clear statement, in others a general statement
about there being a test and in the majority it simply referred
parents to the school for details. In general what was revealed
was a great diversity in methods of testing which reflected the
high level of control and low level of accountability schools
have for these procedures. These schools in 2000 were operating
under the Code of Practice on School Admissions (DfEE 1999) which
set some general criteria for methods of assessment but left admission
authorities to find their own method of establishing relative
aptitude. The new Code (DfES 2003) has not changed this.
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September 2003
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