School places lottery: your views

I cannot see that the proposed new system is going to please anyone! Not even the ones who dreamed it up. Yes, your child might end up in the school you would have chosen anyway but will that school eventually achieve the same standards if taking children it would not normally have taken? If the answer is YES then it is the TEACHERS who should be randomly allocated to different schools as it is the staff making the schools good and not the cohorts. If NO then no-one is going to be happy, not the parents not the schools, not the Councils. Also, think outside the box - assuming this scheme 'works' and in eight years time you have all the schools in a city achieving more or less the same results - how are house prices going to be decided? Sorry, but we need variable house prices and at the moment it mainly depends on schools in the area. Perhaps people will then look at moving to different counties where (I am sure) results will still be better or worse. Finally, can someone please tell me if Roman Catholic schools will be included in this lottery? What about academies? I sincerely believe that different schools should remain and parental choice should be a human right that no Council should be able to dispense with. Thank you.

Despite some appalling behaviour from some pupils and lower percentages on league tables, there have always been successes in a range of areas and also dedicated and passionate adult involvement on behalf of the children. However, to improve overall performance quite a lot of effort and expenditure had gone into improving a 'poor performing' school in this city - rebuilding, rebranding, additional highly skilled and enthusiastic teachers recruited too. The improvements did not yield a sufficient statistical effect on the academic results.
A lottery in this city might work well. The poor performing schools are few and concentrated in areas where a) educational achievement may be of a lower priority than getting bread on the table and keeping the family together, or b) the cultural preference is historically not biased towards academic achievement. Such pockets contrast with large areas of aspiration and with parents enjoying adequate to stratospheric incomes. Spreading all the kids around and mixing them up is likely to open the eyes of all the kids to possibilities and other ways of being without putting all the privileged ones who previously always got into the 'better' schools at a disadvantage. Diluting the effect of the less motivated, behaviourally challenged ones on the total should be a good thing surely and helpto introduce a more truly comprehensive ethos such as can be seen in some smaller towns - e.g. Penarth near Cardiff.

Ok lets stick to the system where those with a bit of money grab all the best areas and leave others in a kind of ghetto - is that any fairer? This system at least gives every child a chance of getting to the good schools and should make intake and standards more equalised. Why dont people who disagree come clean and admit they dont give a damm about fairness they just want a system that they feel suits them best

Hideous idea. The government needs to sort out the education system, ditch the current curriculum - it doesn't work - and put a lot more time and effort into improving the standard of all schools. Having said all that - my grandson attends a Steiner school, whose methods I would advocate for all.

My children could not get a place in the nearest school or one that I put on my preference list. Therefore I have found a school that is in a different borough that is adequate for my brainy children. I don't have any faith in the process system of schools with the education board neither do I with the lottery system either. Money does not necessary make a school a better one. It's the pupils that attend and the teachers and support groups that make it successful.

I think a child should go to a school that is best for them i my self went to a special needs school i now work in a biochemstry lab in a hospital it was the best for myself, but for other's not if i went to a main state school i would have failed and would be unemployed it easy if i child is happy in a school keep them there if not send them to a another school a child should in enjoy leaning and this does not just mean form books school should also be teaching them standards in live to recept themselves and others.

I think it is ludicrous because schools in a local area may differ in standard greatly and because the goverment and councils can't be bothered to do anything about it so they are coming up with a way of "equallity" but everyone should have a chance at any school not be forced to go to a worse one because the local authority says so.

Chloe

It's the education authority's way of making every school equal without having to lift a finger to do anything about it - level the playing field and look, we're all the same. What these buffoons don't seem to realise that this is one of the most emotive subjects ever - they are messing around with the future of our children, who, if they took their heads out of their backsides, they would realise are their future as well. Who do they think are the future tax payers who will keep them in their old age? Who do they think will pay the extortionate council taxes which plump up their very nice pensions, thank you??? Short sighted crisis management by people who aren't fit to push a trolley round Tesco on their own and are too dim to think of anything else. If schools are failing its because of the over-prescribed, draconian curriculum which teaches kids all the touchy-feely nonsense that seems to rule our lives - a big help when they can't read and write. Bin the curriclum (its not set in Scotland, never has been), stop central government setting stupid targets which prove zero, let teachers get on with teaching. Over simplified? - maybe, but the KISS system is always worth a shot - Keep It Simple, Stupid. I'm a trained senior school teaching assistant, and believe me, the figures about illiteracy are true. I've worked with 14 year olds who came up from junior school not able to read at all. Shouldn't be happening in 2008, but it still is and its avoidable and unacceptable.

I think it is a very stupid idea. If the Govt has to do it, they must make sure every school in the UK is a good and competative as the other school.

The system seems ludicrous. It is human nature for parents to stay away from what they feel is a failing school, and yet this system forces parents to put their children in an environment that is not the most nurturing one available. This goes against every protective and nuturing instinct a parent has. You choose a school that you feel is the best environment for your child, both educationally and from a safety point of view. I am sure that the Government Minister or Councillors that came up with this stupid lottery system somehow managed to have their children placed in the better schools in the areas concerned.

The only way the Councils are going to know there is a problem with a school is if parents vote with their feet. That way they will know which schools need improving and which ones need more spaces to meet demand. The lottery system papers over this by forcing parents to take what they are given, keeping the figures from looking too terrible and forcing many bright kids to endure a poor education. These brighter kids end up getting only average exam results keeping the school's figures from looking too terrible but damaging the children's future prospects in the process.

Oh well, what do you expect from a Labour Government that tries too hard to be fair and to give everyone what they want. A noble ideal but one that always ends up with no-one getting anything half-decent at all. They have proved this on the last two occasions they have been in power.