Proposed Michaela Community School in Tooting

Hamster calm restored.

The new school is the Bolinbroke one, with entry tied to attendance at Honeywell, Belleville, Wix and somewhere else.

Siblings - well, I tend to think of it as a way of preventing parents becoming seriously unhinged and actually marching on Parliament with pitchforks, garlic crushers, NVR/VR study books and whatever other implements they have to hand.

Let's face it - it's stressful enough once. Imagine having four children. That said, ds is at a school without a sibling policy, so I'm starting on the whole process again with my youngest. Great. Sooo regret not having gone for one of the BOGOFF (get one in, get them all in) schools.

at hamster. I hope hamster calm is restored.

I agree re a no siblings policy in London. It makes no sense. Unless your only two children are twins parents will always have at least a year when they are at different schools anyway - when the older one goes to secondary. And so many other variables - selective / single sex etc. However, it's easy for me to say, I have one child and I can well imagine parents wanting to be spared the secondary transfer for a second time!

animula - what is the newnappy-valley school? I have known of people renting from Clapham, Brixton and Streatham. Though why go to all that expense fom Steatham rather than go to D, I don't know! As well as G being a good school, I think there is an additional 'competition factor'. The minute something becomes hard to get, there will be some parents who go for that option out of sheer competition, or determination to get something that not all parents can get. Not all, obviously - many many good reasons to put a selective or over-subscribed option first.

Sorry: immobile hamster emergency situation there.

I'm guessing there are one or Two Tooting-ites on this thread - hello to you, and good luck!

My guess is that the new school tied to Nappy Valley schools is going to reduce the renting-in-Graveney catchment quite substantially.

On the up-side, we moved here from ... another part of London, where EB would be considered a heaven-sent school. so it is relative. I'm constantly astounded how few schools here have a serious police presence, with a lot of police vans at lunch and home time.

Oops have to go.

It's mad. People who live 700m away will be renting to be within 200m, next!
And every time the school publishes the last catchement reach, the renters will rent even closer...

Blu you're right it has enlarged the catchment by about 150 metres (!) however the recession has meant a lot of people renting/buying on top of the school to get their first child in. siblings of children who were admitted on distance get in, regardless of where first child lives when siblings apply.

The siblings of renters cause a sort of spiralling 'compound interest' effect, because each flat that is rented for a year produces a new applicant and subsequent siblings...

At least Graveney are stopping siblings of out of catchment selective places, I think? Will that take the pressure off?

irisjohnson hello! we would have been in last year and the one before but all it takes is a few more siblings and nappy valley families renting a maisonette on welham road for the distance to stretch out another 100 metres!

oh, and I agree about police presence - I think many schools work closely with the community police as a preventative, 'police making relationships with young people' sort of way. I don't think it necessarily signals a dreadful problem within the school.

Oh, Madgirl, I am not in the least bit offended - it's the way things are - people need / want the school that is right for THEM - some people rave about CG (the people I know there have arts-orientated kids), some don't like it at all and are hoping for it not to be the default fallback. We're in catchment (barring some freak circumstance) for a school which is wildly over-subscribed, and with a Head who really impressed me, and yet one family in the road have put every other school in the vicinity down except that one. Including a top choice of a school I wouldnt be especially happy with. It's not a thing anyone should take personally, people make thier own choices for them, and it isn't a value judgemnent on anyone else's decisions.

What did the Michaela school have to say about sport? I can't see how they will be able to cater for sport if they set up at Trident.

Yes, this year there was movement at Graveney on the waiting list but it was all within the original distance accepted. I know because I rang frequently up to beginning of September to find out if it had stretched as far as us (we needed 39 metres more). Ds1 got in on the test but we were desperate to be within the distance so his siblings would be in. Unfortunately I am now about to start the whole process again with ds2!

Madgirl, hello from the old days of nursery and indeed on here (we identified each other at a nursery farm outing!). I'm here again because of the school because ironically we have just set up an office at Trident. Fabulous timing! Surely you will be fine on distance for Graveney? It seems to stretch a few metres every year. Good luck anyway.

The police presence thing is surprising, I agree, and they seem to be standard outside all secondaries - I've seen them on various occasions at Dunraven, Charter, St Francis Xavier and Wilson's.

I think they're community support officers rather than full police officers, but agree it's a depressing sign of the times.

This secondary school thing has been quite a journey for DH and I. From the rights and wrongs of selection, 11+ for grammars, inner london schools that are deemed outstanding by Ofsted yet still require a police presence at 3.30...I could wax lyrical quite simply for hours and hours. Thanks for your good wishes. Blu, no offence taken, just found CG children to be lacking in drive or focus especially during lessons and lack of sports facilities (DS1 v sporty) soul destroying. KandyBarr, last year the distance on 1st March (761 metres) was the same on 1st July so we don't hold out much hope for movement after offer day. Hey ho!!

Madgirl - good luck to your DS whatever happens. There's often loads of movement on the Graveney admissions after offers day - March 1 isn't the end of it.

That's interesting too - I know parents who could get Dunraven places who have chosen CG as first preference, even being out of catchemnt, and others who have declined Graveney as too big and not liked the Head's presentation, while others undergo all sorts of extreme shenanigans to get in.

Personally I am in favour of smaller schools and thnk that most secondaries could benefit by being smaller. That would influence my choice of a school eben if it was run by a woman I currently have strong feelings a about! All theoretical for me - we are to the East of your general area.

Madgirl - my post sounded dead patronising, didn't mean to be like that. Interesting to hear your open minded feedback.

Blu I visited CG twice, once when DS1 was in Year 5 and recently in September. I wasn't impressed...but that's another conversation! If fact we preferred EB to CG.

KandyBarr- it would be a close call. I think it would really suit our DS1. However, i have doubts as to whether Michaela will open as I am not convinced it will get sufficient number of applications.

Madgirl I think you were right to go with an open mind, and I agree she's certainly very good at presentations.

According to her website, you can apply for the proposed Michaela school outside the pan-London form, and it says you may have two offers. I'm curious: if on offers day you find yourself with a choice between Graveney and Michaela, which would you choose?

I do sympathise with parents who do not feel they have acceptable options, madgirl.
Existing schools should shape up - and they can, there are schools which have done a U turn under a new head and dynamic leadership. And Free Schoolls and Aacdemies should, ideally, be part of a strategy and open to accountable processes - but in your position I could well imagine feeling 'anything is better than what we've got' - and indeed being inspired by her.
I know the school she has talked of in her book, know many many young peple who go there and her account is 'sexed up' to say the least.
Which is what the feature writer in the Observeer also says, having worked with the young people she writes of.

Good luck with your other appications - is CG not an option for you?

My DH and I went to the parents' meeting last evening in Balham. I went with a very open mind, as I didn't know much at all about it before I went- and only found this thread this morning.
We are 50/50 Graveney on distance (waiting for 1st March anxiously) and we have tried for the sutton grammars with no luck. If we don't get Graveney we'll get EB. I have been to around 15 open evenings/mornings over the past 18 months and this woman was the most impressive. No disrespect to anyone but if your realistic result it EB then you are more likely to be open to considering other, new choices of secondary school. I have also spent 7 years feeling like DS's primary school has not delivered on basic 3Rs teaching so her ethos was like a breath of fresh air last evening. I was however surprised by the tiny turnout- perhaps the meeting at Tooting Leisure Centre will be better attended? I am off now to look at KB's speech- and I'll probably be back here with a change of view!!

It's very much a case of 'find a site and then build a case for a school' as opposed to meeting any demand for a secondary school in the area. Also, the proposed catchment area is enormous (5 mile radius, I believe) which means that the children in the local area will stand little chance of getting a place anyway.

Tenants in the Trident Business Centre only found out about Katharine Birbalsingh's plans to use the site when the leaflet advertising the school was circulated to local primary schools a couple of weeks ago. It is a really unsuitable site which would need stacks of work done to it. There is no way a school will be opening there in September 2012 but I think those setting up have acknowledged this and there are plans to use a temporary site in Balham.

As I understand it she's going to be head and that's that - no recruitment process. I'm not comfortable with public money being spent on senior salaries with such a lack of transparency. At least Toby Young had the sense to recruit senior staff properly.

Lambeth also has another secondary in the pipeline, to be built on the site of the current Fenstanton Primary, on the S Circular. I think the first intake is due to use the temporary buildings Evelyn Grace used to begin with, in 2013.

That will cluster a lot of the secondary school places in the S of the borough, but it isn't exactly hard to get around by bus in Lambeth. Secondaries don't need to be on your doorstep, like Primaries do.

yes - That Woman is due to be Head - how's that for equal oppotunity appointments? It's a private vanity project. And the whole thing demontrates exactly the problem with free schools. The running of which will suck up the LAs capacity to pay for other schools.

Wowser, thought I'd be the lone voice suggesting that the main promoter behind this is uh, just a little unstable- seeming.....

I think she went for Lambeth first purely because she lives there. Tthe borough has just facilitated the building of two new secondary schools (an Academy and the parent- promoted Elm Green school) and is now focussing on primary schools following a major local baby boom, so was hardly being hard-left and controlling in not backing her proposals, as she claimed.

That said, I would consider the Michaela school as an option provided there are other people with good or better credentials than her involved at a very senior level. Is she proposing to be the Head Teacher?