Parents and Sir Lindsay Hoyle have slammed Lancashire council’s ‘divisive’ plan to fill teaching shortages by giving school places to the children of potential teachers.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who’s Speaker of the House of Commons and MP for Chorley, attacked the Tory-run council for its plan, accusing the authority of failing to provide more school places.
Lancashire County Council leaders are set to carry out a public consultation over how it assigns places to students when a school is oversubscribed.
The idea is that it would help recruit and retain teachers, with thousands going on strike in recent months over pay, and others exiting the profession entirely.
As well as the children of staff, education chiefs are also looking at a level of priority being given to the children of armed forces personnel.
Labour MP Sir Lindsay told a newspaper outlet that any form of selection criteria set by Lancaster County Council will cause division within communities and leave numerous parents with a feeling of injustice at the way in which school children are selected.
He said that the root cause of problems in many parts of Lancashire, including his constituency of Chorley, was the lack of school places. The education authority Lancashire County Council had not taken action soon enough to plan for population increases.
Parents in Blackburn told a newspaper outlet it was unfair that children living outside the catchment area were being given favourable treatment over those who lived just minutes away.
Natalie Conway, 44, a student nurse, said that she thought the proposals were very unfair and that priority shouldn’t be given to those who work at the school.
She said that she’s a student nurse and if any of her family turned up at A&E requiring treatment, should they be seen first just because she works there? Of course not. It should be the same for school admissions.
Ami Alex, 25, a singer and street performer, said that she thought it was a really bad idea and did not believe that any child should be given priority over another.
She said that everyone should be treated equally and that she thought it was a silly idea.
Louise Delve, 55, said it was penalising other children. What if a child already had a sibling at the school and they miss out on a place because it’s given to a staff member’s child? Their parents would then have to do four school runs a day.
This is straight out of a communist playbook, education for the privileged only, but then it’s supply and demand. In an ideal world, this would be unnecessary but there’s now a lack of teachers.
I’m actually surprised there’s any available place at any of the schools as we’re getting overrun at the moment and I don’t see any new schools being built at the moment either.
It’s actually disgraceful that it’s come to this because all British-born children should have equal opportunities when it comes to education needs, but then I guess they’ve got to do something to entice enough teachers to the job.
The idea is that we help recruit and retain teachers, especially with thousands going on strike in recent months over pay, and others leaving the profession altogether.
Perhaps Rishi Sunak could find a way to reduce the number of children and their families coming into this country until public services can cope with the demand.
There is no end to these stories about inept councils, but remember that these councils are staffed by people who are essentially missing a brain.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 