I am always fascinated by tales of the lengths parents will go to in order to get their children into a school which they think is going to be better.  I recently read John O'Farrell's book 'May Contain Nuts' which took the whole situation to the extreme. An article in today's Guardian education section trots out some of the same details of parents moving home to be in the right catchment area, and other extreme measures.

I am so glad we did not have any of that trouble. We preferred our children to go to the closest school – because it is closest – and they did.

Anyway, apparently the government are trying to get tighter rules on admissions. Personally I think its a good intention but doomed to failure as much as the alternative plans of the Tories and Lib-Dems are. I can't see the whole issue getting any better while some schools are still perceived as very good and others as piss-poor. 

The telling quote is:

What we hear from parents who contact us is that they want an uncomplicated system, so they can send their child to a local school. And they are sick of being told they have a choice, because their experience is that it's never that, it's always the schools choosing them.

That will never change while there is such perceived inequalities in the schools, and that will not change while the more motivated children with more motivated parents still work the system to get into the 'good' schools – those schools will get the better pupils so that there is some sort of feedback loop which will keep increasing the gap.

I don't know the answer. I'm not sure that anybody does. Some sort of lottery system for over-subscribed schools might help: if spending a fortune moving house does not guarantee a place, but only a chance of a place it might reduce the incentive for such manouevres. Maybe I'll think about that and do the maths.

Reading the story I was struck by one ironic thought though. If all the money paid out by anxious parents (renting or buying properties near a desired school, transport to a school miles and miles away, extra tuition for entrance tests, and so on) had instead been paid into a fund to buy books for schools – not bloody laptops. Books are much better! – with a bit of weighting in favour of the more deprived schools, would we be in such a mess in the first place?