Lotteries used to break middle-class hold on school places

A new Sutton Trust report will detail the extent of banding and random allocation in secondary school admissions, reports Graeme Paton in a Sunday Telegraph lead story.

Tens of thousands of children face losing the automatic right to a place at their local secondary school amid a surge in the number of comprehensives using lottery-style admissions policies.

Figures show that around one-in-12 schools employ rules designed to engineer a more balanced student body and break the middle-class stranglehold on places.

Research by the Telegraph reveals that the number of highly oversubscribed secondary schools employing lotteries or “fair banding” systems rises close to 100 per cent in parts of London.

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A report to be published this week by the Sutton Trust will also reinforce the case for dismantling traditional catchment areas, saying access to the most popular comprehensives should “not be limited to those who can afford to pay a premium on their mortgages or rents”.

But the disclosure will provoke an outcry among parents who fear children’s futures are being dictated by the “roll of a dice”, with pupils often being turned away from a nearby school in favour of one several miles away.

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This week, a report from the Sutton Trust will show the full extent to which random allocation and banding is employed within England’s state education system.

It will recommend the adoption of a national banding exam for schools that choose to use the system – ending the current policy in which secondaries use a myriad of different tests.

Conor Ryan, the trust’s director of research, said: “Access to the most popular comprehensives should not be limited to those who can afford to pay a premium on their mortgages or rents. Banding or random allocation can allow pupils to access these schools from a wider area, and this can mean fairer admissions in heavily oversubscribed inner city schools.”

Read the full article here.

Further Coverage

• Report to show ‘lottery’ admissions (Press Association/MSN)
• Local children losing out on best places as one in 12 comprehensives shun traditional catchment areas (Daily Mail)
• ‘Lottery’ fear over school admission policies (Yorkshire Post)