Where have 30 years of parental choice left school admissions?

Children across the country are absorbing news of which secondary schools they will be going to from September following National Offer Day on March 2. Parents with children applying for primary school places must wait until April 16. For the great majority who are pleased with their offer, it marks the end of an often fraught process.

There is almost complete compliance with the letter of the law and little evidence of significant illegal selection. But schools continue to have strong incentives to select their intake and there is evidence from the reports of the Schools Adjudicator of disruption in the effectiveness of the regulations. This is due to the reduction in the number of community schools (whose admission policies are governed by the local authority) and an increase in the number of academies. Alongside voluntary-aided, free schools and faith schools, academies can set their own admissions policies.

But I found that widespread compliance co-exists with continued social segregation. Rich and poor are still likely to be educated in separate institutions. The schools that poorer children attend are more likely to perform poorly than those attended by their richer peers, according to research by the Sutton Trust charity.

Read the full article here.