Incredible shananigans to get kids in chosen schools?

There was a sort of 'meat market' in Edinburgh in 1963 when directors of education of many authorities came along and interviewed likely candidates who were then offered jobs in whatever schools needed them. I got fed up waiting for Perth and accepted a job in a Direct Grant school. A few days too late, Perth Academy came up with an offer. It made no difference to my subsequent career because I was set on going to Africa and two years later, I did just that - fifty years ago tomorrow!

I've kept out of this so far but I have been reading all the posts with interest.

I have absolutely no problem with faith schools , independent schools, grammer schools, academies , free schools etc.

It is no business of mine if a parent can afford to send their child to an independent school, unless they are a hypocrite who 'instructs' others they cannot/should not do the same as they chose to educate their own children. That is nothing short of inverted class snobbery which is usually quite spiteful in it's nature.

As for faith schools, of which I am speaking of CofE and Catholic (not madrassas and others) I don't think this is easy to deal with. To say they should be abolished is as reasonable for another person to say they want to keep them. I understand how difficult it would be for someone who has a firm belief that they do not want their child educated in a faith school when their catchment school is a faith school. All I will say is 4 years ago when my DGD applied to our local CofE there was no question asked about her faith. Likewise when my daughter attended the local Catholic school 30 years ago they did ask if she had been baptized but that does not happen now so I am told. Am I wrong in my belief a faith school has to prioritise entry to their school for children in the catchment area , not their faith? If faith was the priority why would they not ask what faith you hold, they do not ask here.

My view of education will be based on a personal level, not as some post with knowledge of the education system.

My DGD did not obtain a place in the school of our choice which happened to be CofE, the one her mother had attended. There were too few places and DGD lives less than 1 mile outside the catchment area She now attends a school that we had no desire for her to attend. It is a state school but it's reputation has not disappointed us because it was known to be poor. It has nothing to do with how many poor, middle class, wealthy parents there are. It is an extremely mixed area. It is the quality of the teaching staff and that comes down to the Head Mistress who has allowed the reputation of the school to decline over her tenure.

What I am trying to say it is not as black and white as getting rid of independent schools or faith schools, academies, free schools etc. There are many excellent inner city schools in deprived areas aren't there! It is to my mind the quality of teaching and that starts with a good head teacher and his/her running of a school. The thought that if you shut independent schools that means rich parents would force schools to be level playing fields is more about inverted snobbery to my mind. There are some very wealthy parents of children who attend my DGD school but you can't shift a Head Teacher who is determined to have a 'non homework policy', doesn't like discipline etc.

All so very difficult.

I think, could be wrong, that faith schools have a choice. Whether to stay out of the state system and pay all their own costs, parents paying fees. Or opt to be state funded in which case they have to follow the core state curriculum and admit a quota of children who don't belong to their faith.
Post retirement I worked part-tme in a faith school kindergarten which had opted to stay out of the state system.

*TriciaF8it was not supply it was how 'probationary' teachers were most often placed. All my contemporaries from college got jobs that way unless they were offered a job in their TP school which sometimes happened if vacancies were appropriate.

The c of e high school my children attended offered places on a points system. This meant regular church attendance, added points for other church based activities, brownies, Cubs or other youth organisations and voluntary church activities for parents. It was grant aided I don't know what that means now but the rumour is it may become an academy. It now admits any child with a statement who puts the school as first choice, irrespective of church attendance

I agree that any school takes it's lead from the Head of the school, if there is a weak, or pretty useless Head, then the teaching staff will be demoralised
And the school starts a downward slide.
bad schools are often turned around by an excellent Headteacher.

The existence of private schools is something that anyone who pays, or has paid, tax might well consider their business because private schools are effectively subsidised by the state through being allowed charitable status. Also private teachers' pension schemes are topped up by the state to the same level as state teachers' pensions schemes, which - as the Telegraph noted in November 2011 - means that private teachers' salaries are effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer.

The taxpayer is also paying for the so-called "free schools" that are being opened even in areas where there is no need for further school places because the current schools are under-subscribed, and for the financial "sweeteners" used to entice schools to become academies. The taxpayer may also be interested to investigate the number of academies and free schools that, because of the lack of proper oversight, have been found to be mis-spending money, have closed due to lack of sufficient pupil numbers or having been found to be seriously under performing; offering too limited a curriculum, etc. etc.

Some argue that academies and free schools are sucking up the best teachers and extra money, leaving those falling within local authority control under-resourced. Critics also say that money is being diverted from extra services for schools such as help for children with special educational needs as more and more schools become academies.

Finance and performance management of academies and free schools are not monitored by the local authority education department. They are subject only to Ofsted inspections and in fact, the government announced that all "outstanding" schools will no longer be required to have routine Ofsted inspections.

By "sacrificing" my children for my principles I meant sending them to a substandard (being kind) state secondary school, believe me I never fiddled my applications, bent the rules or got up to anything underhand.

I really am not being an 'inverted snob' in believing society as a whole would benefit from a more egalatarian education system.
I attended both private and state schools, taught in faith and community schools and have worked with headteachers of private, community , faith academy & free schools. I sincerely believe that if we had one style of high quality local community schools it would help to iron out the 'them & us' approach that is increasingly apparent across UK society.

None of the children who attend my church are able to get places in our church primary. Something wrong there I think.

When I graduated and decided against teacher training, I applied to the GLC graduate recruitment scheme and ended up working with the ILEA in County Hall (1969).

I worked with architects to provide the extra accommodation needed for raising the school leaving age to 16 so maybe some of us have links from way back then!

That's when I first realised that voluntary aided schools exist, as they don't in Scotland!

Over the next couple of years I decided to go on to pg teacher training but never considered training in England so returned home.

DS will soon apply for PGDE but won't consider teaching in England -a view I absolutely support.