Location³ Education³: place, choice, constraint in London¹

Abstract

In this paper we draw on three studies of social class change amongst the middle classes undertaken in London over the last 25 years to reflect on the changing values expressed by respondents to school choice. We argue that there has been a hardening of attitudes to school performance and a loss of middle-class autonomy towards schooling. Increasingly we note a concern to navigate the few areas of privilege in a school system designed for working class children but now expected to cater for a vastly increased and educationally-anxious middle class. We specifically address the way in which choice of school has become enshrined in legislation but has itself become constrained by the lack of places in popular schools. We argue that the consequence has been to diminish the amount of choice and ensure that ‘distance from school’ becomes the sole arbiter of access to most popular schools. Thus an attempt at widening access to education has in effect restricted it to those able to access the housing markets nearest to the most popular schools. Taken together with a series of policy interventions designed to circumvent middle-class families playing the system, this has in effect reduced the element of choice by forcing most parents to play for the ‘safe option’ in the fear of being allocated to something worse. We conclude by suggesting that this policy is unsustainable in the longer term and suggest that the government policy of building new Academies is a means of re-engineering London's system of secondary education to reflect the aspirations of those living in its recently gentrified areas.

Keywords:

• London
• middle class
• school choice

Notes

The paper is developed from a key note address by Tim Butler to the ‘Geographies of Education’ conference at Loughborough University in September 2010 organised by Phil Hubbard, Sarah Holloway and Heike Jöns – thanks to them and to those present for raising a number of issues which hopefully are dealt with in the paper. I am also grateful to Gavin Brown for commenting on the draft of the paper before it was sent out to review and to the three anonymous reviewers who made suggestions which I hope have resulted in a better – but certainly shorter – final product. Finally the authors would like to acknowledge substantial contribution to the second project of Garry Robson and also to Sadiq Mir and Mark Ramsden who undertook the interviews for the third (East London) project.

Since 2006 all London boroughs operate a standardised application system which allows you to make six choices for secondary school across London. You are then offered the first choice for which you are eligible. Every school has to publish its admission criteria and, with the exception of selective schools (grammar and faith mainly) which prioritise either ability to score well on entrance tests or membership of a faith, the following are invariably the order in which the criteria are ranked.

1. Statement of Special Education Needs (SEN)

2. In care

3. Sibling at the school already

4. Distance from school2

5. The rest

In reality, the number of places offered to children with SEN or in care is very small, usually well under 10% or less, and the sibling criterion implicitly embodies a distance criterion as older children must have lived close to the school to gain a place. Consequently, the key criterion for the offer of a place is effectively distance to school (Hamnett and Butler 2010). This system has put an end to the middle-class practice of holding multiple offers in different often adjacent boroughs.

The ‘sibling rule’ is designed to ensure that siblings are able to attend the same school if their parents so wish; it grants those with an elder sibling in the school high priority in gaining admission and usually ignores the distance from school; so, if the parents have moved house or the catchment area has become further constrained, these facts are ignored in calculating eligibility.

In reality, as we argue below, many parents are ‘intimidated’ from expressing a true preference because of the very real danger of ending up worse off than if they had simply gone for the ‘local option’.

We acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in their support for two of these projects. The second project was undertaken as part of the ESRC Cities: Cohesiveness and Competitiveness Programme under the title of ‘The Middle Class and the Future of London’ (Grant number L13025101). The third project was entitled ‘Gentrification, Education and Ethnicity in East London’ (RES –000-23-0793).

It would be wrong to give the impression that all the respondents were relentlessly committed to public sector provision. The research was based in two areas of Hackney – Stoke Newington and De Beauvoir Town. In the latter many more respondents worked in the private sector (often at senior levels) and were more open to private provision but were broadly supportive of the idea of public provision and most did not, as yet, have school age children.

DINKYs = Dual Income No Kids Yet.

When I re-interviewed one of my first interviewees in the mid 1990s, a highly successful TV producer who had now become quite wealthy and had moved from Hackney to Islington, he remarked that they were sending their child to the local school (although they clearly could have afforded to have ‘gone private’) because they did not want her to become detached from a sense of belonging to a local community. She had been cared for in her pre-school days by a local childminder who had looked after her with her own children. And they did not want to break that link. ‘Peter’, the respondent, argued that they were not seeking ‘the best’ for their child but rather what he termed the ‘optimal’ solution and social relations were a key part of this. I have no idea if they followed through on this but my point is that this attitude was typical of my 1980s respondents but increasingly atypical in the 1990s.

Banding divides the school population into a number (usually four) equal bands on the basis of ability testing and schools then select their pupils to ensure each band is equally represented.

The highly popular Seven Kings school in Redbridge has an applicant to place ratio of 7.

One of the manifestations of the crisis of education in London is that 20%, as compared to 5% of children nationally, are being educated privately and that it is difficult to get children into private schools.

This dilemma was highlighted by the decision by the MP for Stoke Newington and Hackney North to send her son to the private City of London School for Boys rather than Hackney Downs School: if he had been a year younger, she might have been saved the political embarrassment by being able to send him to the massively popular Mossbourne Academy which in effect replaced it.

One of the faith schools in Redbridge has something like one-third of its intake of Asian background – some are Sri Lankan who were brought up in the Catholic faith but others are treated as exceptions.

An exception to this ‘distance trumps all’ rule might be found in the way in which Black groups have been able to use faith schools. However, the pressure that distance has placed on entry to non-selective schools means that this route to is also in danger of becoming rationed by distance (Butler and Hamnett forthcoming).