The Landlady on the school selection process

There is a bit of a calamity going on, as to which school The Small Daughter will be attending when she reaches secondary level in September. She is the only one from her class who has had her school selected for her, so clearly she is scared and upset and we have decided to appeal. This, I have to say, has absolutely nothing to do with the reputation of the school to which she has been allocated, which is good. The school is about four miles from my house and at least two from her father’s, which is rather inconvenient. I am a firm believer that it is the child that makes the school and not vice-versa, so it is merely a matter of distance and comfort for my daughter.

I have always loathed the type of people who move house simply to be in a good catchment area. Why don’t these types of people just pay for public school and have done with it? Moreover, I have very little time for parents who suddenly find religion six months before the school selection process commences. All those Sundays spent in church are hours they will never get back.

This type of behaviour seems to have reached fever pitch since so many people have decided to make Brighton their very own ‘Islington on Sea’. This is why for the past couple of years, I always drop The Small Daughter off at school some distance from the actual school, and why I am very relieved that she has walked home alone for the past year or so. I can’t imagine discussing such matters as the secondary allocation process with other parents, without wanting to punch someone.

I can’t believe we’re appealing against this school decision, although her father is very much on the front line. I am less fired-up, as I once appealed against a school allocation decision when The Big Daughter – now 23 – was five years old and starting her first school in London, which I naively assumed would be the one directly across the road from the flat where we lived. Alas, due to the catchment area – again that old chestnut – we had to catch a bus to get to the school she was to attend. I was still in my twenties at the time, yet went through the whole appeal rigmarole, which, as far as I remember involved sitting in front of a very stuffy board in Croydon, to no avail.

There is one week to go before any kind of decision will be made. Is it too late to start attending church, I wonder?