The secret pathway to the best schools | Alice Miles - Times Online

The secret pathway to the best schools Alice Miles - Times Online

'Nurseries offer a loophole for parents to get round the strict admissions rules for primaries.
[...] The most aggressive schools have extremely efficient ways of filtering out unwanted children at nursery level. Like, for instance, insisting on five-day-a-week, whole-day attendance, in uniform, from the age of 3. Only the most academically ambitious of parents would be prepared to force a child effectively to start school at age 3. Many less able children must drop out under the pressure. Have they been disadvantaged, or have they chosen to leave?
The schools warn parents off protesting by pointing out that there is no right of appeal if your child is refused entry to the nursery. As one faith school website states: “As nursery age children are not legally entitled to statutory education, there is no right of appeal for those who have been refused a nursery class place.” And another: “Parents who have not been offered a place have the right to appeal to the appeals panel (except in the case of the nursery, where there is no right of appeal).” '