Top state schools opt against priority for poorer children

TOP-PERFORMING state schools have rejected powers to prioritise poorer families over those who can afford local house prices, according to research.

Oversubscribed secondary schools will be around 20 times more likely to give priority to local children over their disadvantaged peers when they offer Year Seven places.

Families in England and Wales will find out today which state secondary school has offered their child a place. Education leaders have warned that families face more competition than ever to secure a place at their firstchoice school, due to a spike in the 11-year-old population.

In the majority of cases, families will be more likely to secure their preferred option if their home is close to the school, a study by the Nuffield Foundation and the University of Bristol found.

Eighty-eight per cent of schools used geographical location in their criteria, including catchment areas and distance or travel time from home to school. In tie-break cases between aspiring pupils, how close they lived to the school was found to be given precedence.

Only 5 per cent of schools gave priority to pupils on school meals. Schools in England were given powers in 2014 to prioritise pupils on free school meals over those who have paid premium property prices in the catchment area.

The policy was introduced by the coalition government despite concerns about it socially engineering the makeup of schools.

Dr Ellen Greaves, co-author of the report, said: “Top-performing schools get to indirectly select pupils from affluent households in the vicinity, effectively freezing out those less fortunate and hindering social mobility.”

A property location close to a good school can add £83,000 to a price tag because of high demand from parents, said Zoopla, the property portal.

Simon Elliott, chief executive of the Community Schools Trust, which runs Forest Gate Community School in Newham, east London, said last week that demand for places at the “outstanding” school was so high the school has shrunk its catchment area to 0.9 miles.

“Sharp-elbowed people move closer to the school, which has had an impact on house prices,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “But they may find they don’t live close enough.”

Free schools were found to be more likely to give priority to poorer pupils. Last week, it emerged that of the 160 grammars in England, 61 had quotas for setting aside places for pupils deemed to be disadvantaged, up from 21 in 2016.