The top state secondary schools in England are being dominated by rich families who can afford to move to good catchment areas. Data shows that more than 40 percent of pupils from these outstanding secondaries come from the wealthiest 20 percent of families.
The new research by the charity Teach First shows that pupils from poorer families are less likely to earn a spot in one of the country's most outstanding secondary school, BBC reported. These secondary schools are more selective compared to the average state schools.
Faith schools, which comprise one third of the top 500 schools, are the ones which were found to be the most selective. And in order to make things fair, and to achieve a balance in the intake in each catchment area, the government is urged by the social mobility charity to introduce using ballots or branding across abilities, according to Independent.
The study also found that pupils whose families can afford to buy houses in the catchment areas are the ones who have higher likelihood to get into top secondary schools. And because of the pricing, poorer students have less chances.
Many children are already anticipating to receive notice of their allocation secondary on Wednesday evening, and many of them expected not to get into their first choice. For most parents, they believe that it is important for their children to attend a highly rated school. 93 percent of the parents said that attending their first school choice is the key to their child's future.
Although there was a little improvement with the data from the past couple of years, the findings still suggest that many parents across England are struggling to get their child into their preferred secondary school than they were the previous year.
