> The whole "parental choice" thing is a nonsense, of course.

Yes and no: when `specialist' schools have as their main admission
criteria distance, clearly it's not entirely sensible.

However, for those of us in metropolitan areas, rather than the vasty
wastes of rural desolation, it doesn't work badly either.  From my
house there are four primary schools within walking distance (although
one of them would be at the outer edges).  There are at least twelve
secondary schools within easy, age-appropriate, don't need a car,
reach, six of which would be just a matter of putting the name at the
top of the list, a few of which are selective and therefore available
city-wide, the rest of which would be tricky to get into but not
impossible.   A couple of them are a bit scary, mind.

Of those we're `in catchment' for, they're radically different in
intake and ethos, although all are in their way very successful --- in
other words, in the case of all of them, there are rational reasons
why you might make them your first preference.      Of the four
closest, we have people living within a few doors of us who made each
of them a first preference, whose children walk or cycle there, and
are doing very well.

ian

[[ For Birmingham-ites, within a few hundred yards of my house,
children have been given first preference secondary places at Kings
Norton Girls, Kings Norton Boys, Bournville, Dame Elizabeth Cadbury
and Turves Green Girls.   Hillcrest (Bartley Green Girls as was) is
popular.  Shenley Court has had its well publicised problems, but may
start to attract people from this side of the A38 as it continues its
phenomenal recovery.   We'd struggle to get into Selly Park Girls, but
it wouldn't be impossible.  You don't have to walk far up the road to
be in catchment for Colmer's Farm.   Then there are children at KE
Camp Hill Girls, KE Camp Hill Boys, KE Five Ways and at few at KES and
KEHS.  We're looking vaguely at KE Handsworth --- geography aside, and
the cross-city line solves most of it, it's a very impressive place
--- and we have neighbours who are similarly considering KE Aston.
Parental choice is a problem once you throw the septic sword of
selection into the pool, but otherwise it's working pretty well. ]]

On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 03:57:20 -0700 (PDT), i.g.batten@batten.eu.org
wrote in
,
seen in uk.railway:
> On Jul 5, 1:38 am, Ross  wrote:
> 
> > Shenley Court and TGBS (& TGGS at the time) were all very definitely
> > sink schools for those with no real hope for the future, if my addled
> > memory is right.
> 
> I suspect your memory is wrong, unless you're a lot younger than I
> think you are.  B29's sink school was Ilmington, now long closed.
[big snip]

I was never in B29, but B31 - in fact I lived about half-a-mile away
from Shenley Court and the local attitude was throughout the 70s that
Shenley Court was a sink school.

My guess is that being in BVT-land allowed you (& your parents, and
peers) to be far enough away to be more balanced in your views than
those who lived on its doorstep.

-- 
Ross. 
* Opinions are my own; my employer has disowned me again.
* Reply-to will bounce. Replace the junk-trap with my first name to e-mail me.

AD: <http://www.merciacharters.co.uk> for rail enthusiast tours in Europe