Pupil Selection   2007  Lottery version    (from BBC Web-site)

January interview with Dr Elizabeth Sidwell on the BBC.

Lottery of School Places

Ministers have given their support to the allocation of places at over-subscribed schools by lottery.

An academy in south London is one of a number of schools now allocating some of its places to children in the area on a random basis.

The arrangements are seen as a way of breaking social segregation, particularly where better-off families buy up homes near popular schools.

They are listed as acceptable in a new draft code on school admissions.

The south London academy which has brought in the scheme is the
 Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College Academy in Lewisham.

This year more than 2,500 parents were chasing the 208 places available for 11-year-olds.

About half of the places were allocated to:
children with special needs,
children in care,
siblings of existing pupils
 and to the 10% of the whole intake selected on musical aptitude.

Of the remaining places, half were allocated on proximity
to the school, while the other half were selected at random
 from within the school's three-mile catchment area.

Better-off

The arrangements would have been scrutinised by ministers before the
 school was granted academy status, as admissions form part
of the funding agreement the Department for Education
and Skills has with groups wanting to set up academies.

Martin Rogers, of the Education Network, an independent body
which advises local councils, believes the policy will be good
 for education and society.

"It is a welcome attempt to break the strangle-hold of the better-off on the most over-subscribed schools," he told the BBC News Website.

"It's not a healthy trend that society is increasingly segregated - whether
by wealth, class or religion."

"There could also potentially be major educational gains as a number
of people who might not have expected to get in will be able to."

"The families of those they displace might then take more interest in
other schools in the area."

Educational Engineering?           As opposed to Social Enginerring?

Note:

The second section by the "independent body" looks like interference by those
who have made their own private arrangements for education!

loaded 13th January 2007