Banding and Ballots

In my latest Sutton Trust blog, I revisit the case for banding and ballots in school admissions.

On Monday, hundreds of thousands of parents will learn which school their eleven year-old children will attend this September. For many, it will be their nearest school, and that will have been their first preference too. But for a significant minority, particularly in urban areas including London, the admissions system will have been fraught with anxieties and complexity.

Today’s London School of Economics report for the Trust, Banding and Ballots, provides the most detailed examination to date of the admissions policies of England’s 3000 secondary schools and academies since the move to greater independence by a majority of English secondaries. Examining admissions policies for 2012/13, it reveals a small but growing enthusiasm, notably among sponsored academies, for approaches designed to achieve a more comprehensive school intake.

If the weekend press is to be believed, this development has provoked a mixture of fear and fury among the middle classes, and perhaps too among estate agents who are happy to jack up the prices of homes in the catchment areas of popular schools. Yet those middle class parents who don’t live in what are often narrow catchments for good schools may not feel so aggrieved, and those from less advantaged homes who can’t afford to do so could benefit significantly. 

The researchers show that the main admissions criteria continue to reflect how near pupils live to the school (distance) or whether they already have brothers and sisters attending (sibling). However, the number of schools using banding – where pupils are tested and placed in different ability bands intended to provide a comprehensive intake – increased from 95 in 2008 to 121 in 2012/13. A further 42 schools were using random allocation in 2012/13.

This growth in the use of banding and ballots seems largely to have been driven by sponsored academies and free schools, which can set their own admissions policies. 17% of sponsored academies used one or both criteria, compared with 5% of all comprehensives.  

Today’s research follows reports by the Trust last year which showed that the proportion of pupils on free school meals in the 500 comprehensives with the best GCSE results was only half the national average. Other Trust research in December showed that a third of professional parents had moved house to be near a good school.

There are two reasons why popular urban schools adopt these approaches, both of which have been explicitly allowed in the statutory admissions code since 2008, though the 2012 Code has tried to limit area-wide ballots. The first is to ensure that successful schools are not simply open to those wealthy enough to live in a catchment area entirely based on distance from the school. The second is used to ensure a good social mix in schools that have traditionally only drawn students from less advantaged circumstances.

But in doing so, they run up against the argument that such policies are unfair because a child living opposite the school might lose out. That’s why many of those using banding or ballots address such concerns by using an inner and outer catchment area, with those living closest to the school in the inner area, but access opened to a wider group of parents in the outer catchment. This is an approach taken by some schools and academies like Mossbourne Community Academy, in Hackney, which has 30% of its pupils on free school meals.

Of course, as the researchers point out, no system is perfect; there is no panacea. Purists would argue that area-wide random allocation would achieve the fairest mix, though that is ruled out in the code as a principal criterion and would be controversial. But a realistic approach recognises that systems which balance issues such as proximity to the school with more open and fairer admissions are more likely to win local support.

That said there are some clear principles that we recommend, building on the interviews that the researchers conducted for the report. The first is that a cooperative approach to admissions – as in Hackney, for example – can work well. In that borough, ten schools including academies and free schools, use banding. But there is a case for children having access to a single banding test, so they don’t have repeat tests. The absence of testing makes random allocation more attractive, though both produce similar results.

However, the effectiveness of any system will depend on who applies to it. So whatever system is used, it is important that there is outreach to less advantaged families, and that parents are aware not just of the school choices available, but also of their rights to free transport (clauses 95 and 96) to a choice of three schools within six miles of their home (or up to 15 miles for faith schools) if their child is eligible for free school meals.

Fair admissions are never easy, and no system is going to be perfect. But so long as some schools are more successful than others, it is important that opportunities to attend them are not limited to those with the deepest pockets. Today’s figures suggest that a small but growing number of schools and academies are trying to avoid do just that.

Schools must be able to recruit poorer pupils

I've written this piece for the Public Finance blog:

The education secretary, Michael Gove, is reported to be considering a change to the Schools Admissions Code that would allow successful schools actively to recruit pupils entitled to free school meals from outside their catchment area. The change has been greeted with predictable shrieks of ‘social engineering’ from the right-wing media and claims by the Margaret Morrissey, who runs an organisation called ‘Parents Outloud’ that it would ‘shunt’ parents to ‘the bottom of the list.’

But Gove is absolutely right to look for ways to ensure that new academies and free schools – which are more likely than Labour’ academies to be in better off areas – are not simply ghettoised by the middle classes. Poorer parents are too often already ‘shunted’ to the bottom of the list by virtue of where they live. The fact is that the use of catchment areas as the main admissions criterion by urban schools ensures that many of the best schools exclude poorer pupils not because they go out of their way to do so, but because they simply cannot afford to live near enough to the school to get in.

With the 2006 Education and Inspections Act, the new School Admissions Code made it easier for schools to combat this by introducing either ability bands or random allocation (lotteries). A growing number of academies use this criteria – often within a wider catchment area than the neighbourhood around the school – to ensure a balanced intake. In fact, middle class families can benefit from this too, as the Brighton experiment showed (in that case, catchments were drawn largely for their benefit), since it at least gives them a chance of getting their child into a school otherwise closed to them. Those who can lose are those who have moved into an artificial catchment area to get into a particular school, though it makes sense for schools to provide a proportion of places for those living very near a school as well as a proportion that is open to wider competition.

Gove’s proposal would give schools another way of widening their intake, by allowing them actively to recruit poorer pupils, presumably by setting aside a number of places for those entitled to free school meals (FSM). There is a critique of FSM as the measure, in that it misses a lot of youngsters from families of modest means, but the principle is a good one. And if the new pupil premium - provided it is additional and significant – is to work, good schools must have more than an incentive to recruit poorer pupils, they need the means to do so as well.

That said, there are two other aspects of the 2006 reforms that need a shot in the arm, if this scheme is to work. The first is the entitlement to free transport to any one of three local schools (rather than that nominated by the local authority, as before). This needs to be better publicised, and must not be a victim of the Chancellor’s cuts. The second is the choice adviser. As I wrote last year, the idea of people actively helping poorer families to make choices has had a patchy record. But it could be revitalised as a Big Society idea, with successful people from poorer communities providing the advice at crucial times during the year, and active rather than passive efforts to promote good choices.

Of course, Ed Balls is right to point out that Labour’s academies, by being placed within poorer communities, are making a huge difference to many poorer families. But that doesn’t mean his successor is wrong to find ways to redress the imbalanced intakes of some of our more successful schools at the same time.

Making admissions a lottery

My former no 10 colleague, Phil Collins has a great piece in The Times today rehearsing his old argument in favour of lotteries for school admissions. If the Tories are serious about opening up the school system and doing so with fair admissions, then they must encourage lotteries or banding in the cities. As Phil argues:

Ten more years of reform would certainly mean that the second best schools would be a lot better than they are. But even that wouldn’t solve the problem entirely. There is no admissions system within the wit of man that will avoid the best schools being over-subscribed. Even in the utopia of universal greatness it will still be rational for parents to choose the best school they can. Therefore, it is crucial to find a fair way of distinguishing between applicants.....There is one decisive political objection to the lottery scheme: it means that, all of a sudden, access to a good school cannot be purchased via the housing market. In politics, the complaints of those who lose will always drown out the muted thanks of those who gain. It will be hard to do but it is only when we have enough good schools and a fair way of selecting children that parental choice will become really meaningful.

Fair admissions are key to school choice

A plan to crack down on parents lying about their home or religious circumstances as a way of gaining an advantage in schools admission has attracted the predictable response that 'there should be more good schools' rather than fairer admissions rules. And an inquiry into school lotteries - predictably - is likely to endorse their continued use.

Of course, those who raise the mantra about good schools - like the indefatigable Sheila Lawlor on Today this morning - don't bother to look at what's actually been happening in schools over the last decade or so. There are twice as many comprehensives where 70% or more pupils achieve five good GCSEs including English and Maths, and the number where fewer than 30% do so has fallen from 1600 - half of all secondaries in 1997 - to around 250 today.

But even if the numbers of top performing schools are doubled again and no school gets below the 30% benchmark - which should be the minimum expectation for the next phase of school reform, although the Tories are curiously unwilling to explain what outcomes they expect from their proposed changes - there will still be some schools that are more popular than others. Anyone suggesting otherwise is talking rot.

So, the issue is then: what is the fairest way to allocate places where a school has more applicants than places? Good schools are encouraged to expand, but are often reluctant to do so. The number of academies, which are typically very popular with parents, is expanding rapidly. But a system will still be needed that is fair.

Since both major parties now eschew selection (apart from a limited 10% on aptitude in a handful of subjects) this boils down to a question of whether proximity to a school should trump most other criteria? For primaries, it makes sense to use this. But for urban secondaries, it does not, as the arbitrariness of distance simply drives up house prices and places some schools out of reach on financial grounds. Far fairer to use either banding or a lottery (random allocation).

But that is not enough in itself. There must also be a network of community activists trained to help less articulate parents to be as pushy as their middle class counterparts. Such choice advisers should not be local authority bureaucrats, but part-timers from the communities that need support, with credibility in those communities but the knowledge to understand the best choices for individual pupils. And the changes introduced in 2008 (following the 2006 Act), where free school transport is now linked to choice, should be extended and much better publicised so that there is subsidised transport available to a choice of schools within a reasonable distance of one's home. To pretend that choice will emerge simply because new providers are allowed is not enough. There must be active support to enable people to exercise those choices.

UPDATE: The Adjudicator's reports can be read here. Ed Balls's response is here; there is to be no wider crackdown, and a welcome endorsement of lotteries as tie-breakers. However, the response does dodge the genuine usefulness of random allocation or banding as a way of widening access to good schools. That is a debate which should not be dodged.

This post is also featured on Progress online.

A lottery is much fairer than selection by postcode

Schools secretary Ed Balls has asked the Schools Adjudicator to consider whether or not it is fair to children for schools to use a lottery to allocate places where there are more applications than the school can cater for. Contrary to popular (media) mythology, it has always been permissible to use a lottery in such circumstances, though the latest schools admissions code is more explicit on the subject than before. And it is a much fairer way of doing so. Indeed, the Times survey today suggests that 3.5% more parents in Brighton have gained their first choice than before it introduced its lottery (though it is true that its manner of doing so left a lot to be desired).

The main objection to lotteries has always been that they sound unfair rather than that they are so. This was a debate I used to have about their political practicality with my former colleague Phil Collins, whose views are admirably reflected in today's Times leader, and it was why I have tended to favour banding, which offers similar choices but appears less driven by chance.

Of course, such methods need to be applied with a dose of common sense. So, there should be some places for those living very close to a school, and to help twins. However, lotteries and banding are much fairer than an arbitrary line drawn on a map beyond which a parent has no chance of getting into their preferred school.

It is said that in an ideal world, nobody would want to choose schools because all would be equally good and each would have enough places to cater for demand. Apart from the improbability and cost of that outcome, there will always be variables that attract some to one school over another. Schools may offer different sports, be stronger in a particular subject, have a more progressive or more traditional curriculum.

Just as such diversity is healthy, it is equally healthy that parents should be able to choose between such schools and not be precluded simply because they live 1.8km rather than 1.7km from the school gates. And when you have 600 applications for 200 places, as with some London academies, it is palpably unfair to deny most of them the chance of a place. Selection by postcode or house price is hardly a model for comprehensive education. Moreover, attracting a broad mix of pupils is a recipe for success that was understood by those who first campaigned for comprehensives - and is now demonstrated by successful academies.

So, I trust that the adjudicator will reach a wise decision in this case. But it is rather worrying that the schools secretary appears to think that a comprehensive school can achieve a broad intake simply by taking those who live within its rather arbitary catchment area.

This post was picked up by Common Endeavour and Teachers TV News.