Comment: Choice for all a long way off

Feb 26 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

FEW subjects are more pressing and urgent for parents than the quality of their children’s schooling. Some spend huge sums of money on a private education, others will move home to be near a good school, while others suddenly become avid churchgoers to win a place for their child at a faith school.

All this reflects the dread with which so-called "sink schools" are regarded, as well as a recognition that, without good qualifications, their children’s future prospects will be severely limited.

The stark lack of choice open to parents in Liverpool is revealed by figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which show that just 78% of the city’s 11-year-olds went to their parents’ first-choice school this year.

This figure is far less than those of neighbouring authorities, with a 96% chance of a parent gaining a place at their first-choice secondary in Warrington, 96.4% in St Helens, and 97% in Halton.

A minority of children – 8%, or nearly one in 12 – were unable even to win a place at any of three preferred secondary schools listed on their application form and were forced to enrol elsewhere.

The figures are released, aptly enough, just days before parents find out whether they have been successful in their choice of secondary school for next September.

These are awaited with as much anxiety as A-level or GCSE results, as they can have just as much of a profound influence on a child’s future.

Liverpool city council admits it is impossible to meet every parent’s choice without, in its phrase, "elastic walls": in other words, it is physically impossible to accommodate every pupil who wants to go to an over-subscribed school.

Trying to develop a fair system for school admissions is one of the biggest challenges for the modern education system and, if these figures are anything to go by, the Government has some way to go before it can say that parents, in Liverpool at any rate, are able to send their child to the secondary school of their choice.