UK schools

Old Sep 10th 2014, 9:49 pm
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Default UK schools

OK, so when I read through all the threads about moving back, I see the school issue come up on 99% of the threads. What is the deal with the UK schools, why do they always seem to be full and why does there seem to be a whole unnecessary competition over which one is better, securing a place is always immensely hard, etc? I don't understand... In Canada you have a choice of public or catholic school, there's always a place and everyone goes to the state school, no naff about private schooling.

I'm genuinely interested in the climate and politics of the UK system and why it is the way it is. Is homeschooling possible in the UK? Or is it heavily regulated/banned?

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Old Sep 10th 2014, 10:02 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by Gozit
OK, so when I read through all the threads about moving back, I see the school issue come up on 99% of the threads. What is the deal with the UK schools, why do they always seem to be full and why does there seem to be a whole unnecessary competition over which one is better, securing a place is always immensely hard, etc? I don't understand... In Canada you have a choice of public or catholic school, there's always a place and everyone goes to the state school, no naff about private schooling.

I'm genuinely interested in the climate and politics of the UK system and why it is the way it is. Is homeschooling possible in the UK? Or is it heavily regulated/banned?

Schools get their pupils from a specific cachement area, and as in all countries some are better than others, but the UK has a organisation ODSTED, which visits all schools, looks at the building, facilities, staff and exam results, from this data they do classify schools.
Details are here..
Ofsted | Home page

People can apply to go to a school outside the cachement area, BUT these applications ae only looked at if the school has not filled it's places. Therefore parents movig would be likely to look at OFSTED gradings for thier local schools, and try to find a house in their prefered area. This does, in some cases, lead to the problem of the boundary of a cachement area running the length of a street, and house prices on the side with the better schools being higher than those on the other side of the street where the schools may not be graded so high.
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Old Sep 10th 2014, 10:12 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

The league tables that were brought in more than a decade ago have effectively created a situation where parents who care about their children's education and can afford to move if the schools in their area are bad send their children to the high achieving schools. Because children in high income families and whose parents are engaged in their education tend to do better at school, the divide between better and worse performing schools has widened considerably, and most of the better performing schools are oversubscribed.

Homeschooling is completely legal in the UK and not heavily regulated.
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Old Sep 10th 2014, 10:34 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Some of it is related to the Greenwich ruling:

BBC News | Education | The scramble for school places

Homeschooling is fairly widespread.
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Old Sep 10th 2014, 10:53 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by mikelincs
Schools get their pupils from a specific cachement area, and as in all countries some are better than others, but the UK has a organisation ODSTED, which visits all schools, looks at the building, facilities, staff and exam results, from this data they do classify schools.
Details are here..
Ofsted | Home page

People can apply to go to a school outside the cachement area, BUT these applications ae only looked at if the school has not filled it's places. Therefore parents movig would be likely to look at OFSTED gradings for thier local schools, and try to find a house in their prefered area. This does, in some cases, lead to the problem of the boundary of a cachement area running the length of a street, and house prices on the side with the better schools being higher than those on the other side of the street where the schools may not be graded so high.
Okay, makes sense... Another question now - are all the schools gender separated? (Ones that are should "get with the times" IMO - like seriously?) And i'm assuming there are "public" (ie non-religious) schools in the UK. Unlike Malta, where your ONLY option is catholic schools!

Originally Posted by petrichor
The league tables that were brought in more than a decade ago have effectively created a situation where parents who care about their children's education and can afford to move if the schools in their area are bad send their children to the high achieving schools. Because children in high income families and whose parents are engaged in their education tend to do better at school, the divide between better and worse performing schools has widened considerably, and most of the better performing schools are oversubscribed.

Homeschooling is completely legal in the UK and not heavily regulated.
Yeah. In the article Sally posted it said "gone are the days where you just send your children to the nearest school and they move on to the nearest secondary .............." - that's how it is here. Whether its any better i'm not sure.

Originally Posted by Sally Redux
Some of it is related to the Greenwich ruling:

BBC News | Education | The scramble for school places

Homeschooling is fairly widespread.
Thanks.
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Old Sep 10th 2014, 10:57 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by Gozit
Okay, makes sense... Another question now - are all the schools gender separated? (Ones that are should "get with the times" IMO - like seriously?) And i'm assuming there are "public" (ie non-religious) schools in the UK. Unlike Malta, where your ONLY option is catholic schools!


Yeah. In the article Sally posted it said "gone are the days where you just send your children to the nearest school and they move on to the nearest secondary .............." - that's how it is here. Whether its any better i'm not sure.



Thanks.
That article could be out of date but I do remember things changed at that point.

'Comprehensive' schools are mixed, some areas have 'grammar' schools from the old system and they are usually (?) single-sex.
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Old Sep 10th 2014, 11:00 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by Sally Redux
That article could be out of date but I do remember things changed at that point.

'Comprehensive' schools are mixed, some areas have 'grammar' schools from the old system and they are usually (?) single-sex.


I'd say from what I've seen on BE it seems pretty accurate.

Are the grammar schools gradually switching over to the new system? For some reason I thought "grammar schools" were better than normal ones?
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Old Sep 10th 2014, 11:05 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by Gozit


I'd say from what I've seen on BE it seems pretty accurate.

Are the grammar schools gradually switching over to the new system? For some reason I thought "grammar schools" were better than normal ones?
There used to be grammar schools (selective) and secondary moderns (for the rest).

The comprehensive system came in right around the time I went to high school. It incorporated all children. However, some grammar schools continued.
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Old Sep 10th 2014, 11:08 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by Sally Redux
There used to be grammar schools (selective) and secondary moderns (for the rest).

The comprehensive system came in right around the time I went to high school. It incorporated all children. However, some grammar schools continued.
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Old Sep 11th 2014, 7:39 am
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Default Re: UK schools

We had no problem at all getting our 2 into a good local school. Of course like anywhere in more densely populated areas it would be harder to get places as schools dont have an endless amount of space.
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Old Sep 11th 2014, 7:50 am
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Default Re: UK schools

The vast majoruty of schools are mixed, i.e. not single sex, there are a few, noe very few, that are still single sex, and most of them are the 'public schools', which in the UK are private fee paying schools. There are still a few parts of the country with grammar schools, which do have entrance exams and only those that pass get to go there (me in the 50s) while at that time the schools for the rest were called 'secondary moderns', and in many places the grammar and secondary schools were in the same grounds, this made it so much easier for the authorities to amalgamate them when they became 'comprehensive'. There has certainly been a shift in recent years to 'Academies' which do concentrate on ceretain subjects. There has also been a big upsurge in 'Faith Schools' which are, as the name suggests, for people of a single faith, but the majority of these have been in Muslim areas, and there is a lot of suspicion that they are being used to foster hard-line Islam teachings, so much so that in some areas they have had the board of govenors removed and replaced by people put in by the government, and the curriculum overhauled and many teachers sacked because of their teachings.
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Old Sep 11th 2014, 3:01 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by mikelincs
The vast majoruty of schools are mixed, i.e. not single sex, there are a few, noe very few, that are still single sex, and most of them are the 'public schools', which in the UK are private fee paying schools. There are still a few parts of the country with grammar schools, which do have entrance exams and only those that pass get to go there (me in the 50s) while at that time the schools for the rest were called 'secondary moderns', and in many places the grammar and secondary schools were in the same grounds, this made it so much easier for the authorities to amalgamate them when they became 'comprehensive'. There has certainly been a shift in recent years to 'Academies' which do concentrate on ceretain subjects. There has also been a big upsurge in 'Faith Schools' which are, as the name suggests, for people of a single faith, but the majority of these have been in Muslim areas, and there is a lot of suspicion that they are being used to foster hard-line Islam teachings, so much so that in some areas they have had the board of govenors removed and replaced by people put in by the government, and the curriculum overhauled and many teachers sacked because of their teachings.
Thanks. I'm a bit less confused now
With regards to the muslim stuff - that is just terrible tbh... All of them should be investigated and/or closed down if need be. Its hard to say, not hire muslim teachers, they'll cry discrimination. Although if its a catholic faith-based schools they could only hire catholic teachers?
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Old Sep 11th 2014, 4:06 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by mikelincs
The vast majoruty of schools are mixed, i.e. not single sex, there are a few, noe very few, that are still single sex, and most of them are the 'public schools', which in the UK are private fee paying schools. There are still a few parts of the country with grammar schools, which do have entrance exams and only those that pass get to go there (me in the 50s) while at that time the schools for the rest were called 'secondary moderns', and in many places the grammar and secondary schools were in the same grounds, this made it so much easier for the authorities to amalgamate them when they became 'comprehensive'. There has certainly been a shift in recent years to 'Academies' which do concentrate on ceretain subjects. There has also been a big upsurge in 'Faith Schools' which are, as the name suggests, for people of a single faith, but the majority of these have been in Muslim areas, and there is a lot of suspicion that they are being used to foster hard-line Islam teachings, so much so that in some areas they have had the board of govenors removed and replaced by people put in by the government, and the curriculum overhauled and many teachers sacked because of their teachings.
What areas? I've never heard of these schools! Are they publically funded? Could I have an example please?
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Old Sep 11th 2014, 4:45 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

Originally Posted by Tirytory
What areas? I've never heard of these schools! Are they publically funded? Could I have an example please?
Birmingham - bit of a scandal....

Operation Trojan Horse: Now 25 Birmingham schools under investigation for alleged Islamic extremist takeover plot - Education News - Education - The Independent
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Old Sep 11th 2014, 4:59 pm
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Default Re: UK schools

There's a lot of it's/but's/possible hoaxes in there. It doesn't sound very convincing at all.
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