Labour party could make harder to get into an ET school for some people

robindch

lazygal wrote: »

We could live in the arse end of nowhere and have to travel for education purposes and we'd certainly have a much larger house if we did, but we want to live in an urban area so we pay the price accordingly.

I'm not saying that selection-by-distance is a bad idea, simply pointing out that BristolScale's objection:

Bristolscale7 wrote: »

ET's first come, first served policy discriminates against travellers, newly arrived immigrants, and foster children.

...is a trifle simplistic if an undefined something called "discrimination" is the quantity which needs to be minimized during the selection process.

FWIW, I've moved house to be closer to my kid's school + her friends :eek:

Bristolscale7

robindch wrote: »

But that discriminates against people who live far away from the school.

Try again?

I'll also add that you seem to have a simplistic understanding of discrimination. The current ET policy structurally discriminates against travellers, adopted children, foster children, and children of new immigrants. Your response is typical liberal hand-wringing--Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds." Never mind that this 'best outcome' further marginalizes the groups that are already vulnerable/oppressed. This is textbook discrimination. Enrollment based on geography, you say, discriminates against people who live far way. This is a contingent factor and has more to do with the ultramontanism of Irish society and the role afforded to religion in education. The fix for people who live far is away is for ET to give preference, like every other school does, to students who would contribute to the ethos of the school.

Zamboni

Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School - there will be massive demand as one of the first secondary schools operated under ET patronage.

This school will give first level priority based upon catchment area.
http://stepasideetss.ie/current/?page_id=11

So children in Stepaside labelled as religious will have higher priority access than, for instance, any child living in Rathfarnham, Sandyford, etc. who are attending an existing Primary Educate Together.

If Stepaside ET operated a first come first served basis, parents of existing ET primary schools would have the knowledge about enrollment and want to register as soon as possible.
Now they will have to wait to see if there are any scraps left from the process.

As Tim Robbins says, this is simply making it even more difficult to gain a school place.

Bristolscale7

Zamboni wrote: »

Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School - there will be massive demand as one of the first secondary schools operated under ET patronage.

This school will give first level priority based upon catchment area.
http://stepasideetss.ie/current/?page_id=11

So children in Stepaside labelled as religious will have higher priority access than, for instance, any child living in Rathfarnham, Sandyford, etc. who are attending an existing Primary Educate Together.

If Stepaside ET operated a first come first served basis, parents of existing ET primary schools would have the knowledge about enrollment and want to register as soon as possible.
Now they will have to wait to see if there are any scraps left from the process.

As Tim Robbins says, this is simply making it even more difficult to gain a school place.

Agreed. ET needs to update its outlook and adopt a more mature position.

Zamboni

Bristolscale7 wrote: »

Agreed. ET needs to update its outlook and adopt a more mature position.

We may agree on the problem but I am not entirely sure we agree on the solution.

I think the First Comes First Served policy is the fairest out of a bad bunch. Because those who are most inclined will have done the research and applied first.
ET is not and should not become a school for Atheists, Muslims, COIs or anything else. It should certainly not stoop to the discriminatory level of Catholic schools.
It is all inclusive and they should be applauded for maintaining that ethos.
They should absolutely have a first come first served policy in Stepaside.

Hotblack Desiato

Zamboni wrote: »

If Stepaside ET operated a first come first served basis, parents of existing ET primary schools would have the knowledge about enrollment and want to register as soon as possible.

The new Kishogue secondary ET gives priority (Band 1) to children from several ETs in the Lucan area (and two non-ETs in the area) which will probably be enough to fill it. Band 2 is a number of slightly further away ETs, Band 3 is any other children living in the 'specified area'.

The Lucan ET primaries are too far away from us to consider, we had hoped that we might be able to get the kids into Kishogue as the local secondary options here are all RC. Sadly Kishogue will be oversubscribed on the output of the specified Band 1 primaries alone, so no chance for any other kids to get in.

lazygal

There's a wider issue with et enrolment policies too. How come the Dept can dictate catchment area on enrolment to these schools but religious ones are free to have whatever policies they like? Why did et agree to Dept catchment areas instead of having feeders from et schools?

Bristolscale7

lazygal wrote: »

There's a wider issue with et enrolment policies too. How come the Dept can dictate catchment area on enrolment to these schools but religious ones are free to have whatever policies they like? Why did et agree to Dept catchment areas instead of having feeders from et schools?

ET could use an enrollment policy that gives preference to ET students. It chooses not to do this. As the number of ET secondary schools increases we can hope that parents will make themselves heard and shake the ET national office out of its complacency. If you have children at an ET primary school you should mobilize the PA and the BoM to write to the national office. In addition schools can bring motions to the AGM.

expectationlost

robindch wrote: »

Can you outline an admissions policy which "discriminates" against fewer people?

being only able to sign up 2 yrs beforehand like the bill suggests

expectationlost

lazygal wrote: »

There's a wider issue with et enrolment policies too. How come the Dept can dictate catchment area on enrolment to these schools but religious ones are free to have whatever policies they like? Why did et agree to Dept catchment areas instead of having feeders from et schools?

what catchment areas do ET schools have? oh I see stepaside has one, pretty sure I read last year the ET schools don't have catchment areas.

expectationlost

lazygal wrote: »

If you're planning on a family or have one already it makes sense to live near where essential services are readily available. Before I bought a house I looked into things like schools in the area and this was before I even met my husband. We could live in the arse end of nowhere and have to travel for education purposes and we'd certainly have a much larger house if we did, but we want to live in an urban area so we pay the price accordingly.

not everyone can plan that many years ahead.

man_no_plan

I don't know why there is a need to establish second level schools under educate together when there has been non denominational education in ETB (VEC) schools since the early 1900's.

At primary level there was and remains a need to look at religious education. In my view all schools at all levels should be non denominational.

The jockeying for patronage of all bodies really annoys me. Let there be public,secular education for all full stop. The DES shouldn't fund private education in any way in my view.

The problem with admission to school is that the education act gives parental choice. This is subject to the schools admission policy of course. In rural areas it is further subject to the CIE bus routes (nearest school).

The demand to have exclusive education from parents is part of the problem. More mobile people have more choice, the mobility creates notions of better schools and further draws from the local school which may be seen as 'bad'. Then you're into a cycle of over subscription in one school and falling numbers in another.

If you remove faith education does it solve that problem? Or will people still want the 'better' school? Do people go to ET because of strongly held conviction or because its a trendy thing to do?

Tim Robbins

Seems bizarre that the state will tolerate religious discrimination for over 100 years and get rid of first come first served after about 10 years when very few are complaining about it.

For me, this illustrates one thing. Religious people will get up and get involved in politics for their ideals and lifestyle choices, secular people are more likely to just moan about it.

lazygal

VEC/ETB schools are not non-denominational. The primacy schools follow the goodness me goodness you programme and children are segregated for indoctrination during school hours. There's often similar happening at second level, with faiths having access to schools during school hours for what is essentially faith formation dressed up as religious eduction.

Hotblack Desiato

If it actually was religious eduction then it wouldn't be so bad

man_no_plan

lazygal wrote: »

VEC/ETB schools are not non-denominational. The primacy schools follow the goodness me goodness you programme and children are segregated for indoctrination during school hours. There's often similar happening at second level, with faiths having access to schools during school hours for what is essentially faith formation dressed up as religious eduction.

Not non denominational or non religious. There is religious education but it involves learning about all faiths, not indoctrination, in second level certainly. The issue at hand is school enrolment based on faith. Facilitating access to religious organisations for faith formation in primary schools in not sure of but if it is the case why don't atheists or humanists send in someone?


The important point is that ETB schools allow equality of access regardless of faith. That is the topic of the thread after all. Not what happens when you're in there.

Bristolscale7

The Ballinteer ET school has put forward the following motion for the AGM at the end of May:

"This AGM asks ET to enter into discussions with the DES to replace the concept of a geographical catchment area in the admissions policy of ET second level schools with criteria which give priority to ET primary feeder schools until such time as there are sufficient ET second level schools to cater for ET primary schools, and thus ensure that children from ET primary schools have access to second level schools under the continued patronage of ET and in line with parental choice."

I'll be asking my school representatives to support this.

Tim Robbins

Bristolscale7 wrote: »

The Ballinteer ET school has put forward the following motion for the AGM at the end of May:

"This AGM asks ET to enter into discussions with the DES to replace the concept of a geographical catchment area in the admissions policy of ET second level schools with criteria which give priority to ET primary feeder schools until such time as there are sufficient ET second level schools to cater for ET primary schools, and thus ensure that children from ET primary schools have access to second level schools under the continued patronage of ET and in line with parental choice."

I'll be asking my school representatives to support this.

Was thinking about this a bit more. Surely, the fairest thing to do would be to make it first come first served for the first 90% and make it a lottery for the last 10%.

recedite

man_no_plan wrote: »

There is religious education but it involves learning about all faiths, not indoctrination, in second level certainly. The issue at hand is school enrolment based on faith...


The important point is that ETB schools allow equality of access regardless of faith. That is the topic of the thread after all. Not what happens when you're in there.

While admissions policies and "faith formation" policies are two different issues, they are connected. Nobody really wants to send their kid to a school where they will be indoctrinated into somebody else's religion, but sometimes they have no choice.

ETB secondary schools wouldn't be as full on as a RC owned faith school, but they still implement the RC version of religious education. The RE teachers and chaplains are trained and supplied from RCC approved institutions. More on that here.

Then there is the new phenomenon of the RCC applying for an open access, but catholic, patronage of a new primary school in an area where they already control the established schools. The established faith schools are publicly funded, but can restrict access to only "their own".
This leaves the new school operating as a kind of missionary school. Taking in mostly immigrant kids who are only there for the free education (which they are entitled to) but they end up getting the religious indoctrination too as part of the package, all courtesy of the taxpayer.

This kind of strategy also leads to the more native kids, being mostly white and Catholic, going to the more established schools, and not mixing much with the immigrant kids. Which can't be good for society.
Here's an example of this.
RCC gains patronage of such a school because a kind of vote is taken in the local area by the Dept. of Education when deciding who gets the patronage, but the parents who intend to send their kids to the other established faith schools can also take part in it, even though they won't actually be using the new school.

Bristolscale7

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Was thinking about this a bit more. Surely, the fairest thing to do would be to make it first come first served for the first 90% and make it a lottery for the last 10%.

Depends on what outcome you are hoping to achieve. The goal of the Ballinteer proposal is to ensure that ET primary students gain access, insofar as possible, to ET secondary schools. The question of fairness doesn't really come into it except as regards access to ET primary schools. So I think your system for ET primary schools combined with an ET preference for secondary schools is the most fair or just system.

recedite

There's no particular reason why a child who attended ET at primary level must attend ET at secondary. The child who lives in the feeder area of the secondary school should get priority over the child who lives in the feeder area of another secondary school.
Once you start this business of "looking after our own first" you are no better than the denominational schools with their religious discrimination.