Fair admissions campaigner and Bristol teacher Christine Townsend is standing as mayor to fight for fairer school admissions. The election offers her a platform to campaign against admissions practices that stop poorer children getting places at better state schools. Miss Townsend, a former teacher at City Academy, Orchard School and City of Bristol College, feels that while she hasn’t a hope of winning, she wants to draw attention to injustice and unfairness in school admissions, a problem she blames on national government policies. Townsend feels that in order eradicate equality and increase social mobility, children must not be chosen to attend schools based on their parent’s affluence. 

A recent report by The Sutton Trust entitled ‘Background to Success’ found that the poorest children (those entitled to free school meals) were three times less likely to take three or more A levels than other students. The research also identified a concept described as ‘double disadvantage’ – the impact on achievement when the poorest students attend schools with a large number of other poor students. The inevitable outcome of the current competitive school’s landscape, in a city where wealthy neighbourhoods are right next to deprived ones, is ‘separation by affluence’ – with some schools using every trick in the book to select pupils, and others left alone with their moral purpose educating the rest.

Townsend believes the solution is very simple. She proposes that all schools, regardless of type, should prioritise places for children entitled to free school meals. This is a course of action which has already been implemented across many academies and Free schools. However, Research and Information on State Education says that tinkering with school admissions rules in England is unlikely to encourage pupils from deprived backgrounds to gain places at the best performing state schools. This is because of economic inequalities but also because social groups show a desire to stick together.