Proposed Michaela Community School in Tooting

Birbalsingh is a total nutjobber with her own egotistical agenda.

Her speech to the tory party conference is probably still on youtube...google it and see how you feel.
I agree with others - I don't see how a community school with distance-based admission criteria can be needed wherever there happens to be a possible building. She claimed it was needed in North Lambeth. And I thought her speech was a disgraceful piece of cheap populism.

Would agree with majority opinion too. The prospect of a school mopping up bright kids who just missed getting into Graveney is a far cry from her stated vision of altruism and educational rigour for poor children.

And while I'd love to believe she's a talented, altruistic visionary, I'm afraid the evidence so far and the behaviour she's displayed doesn't stack up: she's treated the children in her care as a commodity - as characters in her books or as illustrations in her speech to Tory conference.

Simply don't trust her and wouldn't trust my DCs to her, either.

I'm with the majority opinion on this, I'm afraid. Blu and BasildonBond have summed up my particular concerns especially well.

Have a rather grim feeling that this one would be a rather unstable option to send your child to. Which is not on, really.

as far as I can see it's just a vanity project and has no basis in what's actually needed in the area, which is primary places not secondary

There's no way that the school will be up and running by September this year - even if they did miraculously get all the current users of the Trident centre to move out, they'd still have to transform a completely unsuitable building into a school, which would cost millions and still only be a temporary site as it just won't be big enough in a couple of years time

It will be taking away badly needed funds from well-established schools and not addressing the problem of a lack of primary places in the area

Possibly, but given the choice between Graveney - a top school with a strong academic record and well established - and an unknown quantity, I'd choose Graveney. Might be popular with parents whose DCs don't get in to Graveney, I guess.

She hasn't even bought a building yet, so nothing is certain. And if she does get up and running in the Trident Centre (a horribly depressing building) I would have thought she'd have a tough time competing with the partially selective and super-academic Graveney school just down the road.

I am in favour of small secondary schools, for sure.
However a number of factors put me off this venture.

1. That Woman. She took such liberties with that book she wrote, and I read an article in the Observer by a guy who had run some projects she wrote about. He maintained that the kids were polite, engaged, progressing. She wrote about them in a sensational way describing them as a feral mob. She comes across as a self publicist doing this for her ego. Remember she delivered her onslaught on state schools (in general) while deputy head of a school in Lambeth (with a representative intake - a true comp) that this year got 93% A-C grades at GCSE, 73% inc English and Maths. But how to make yourself a reputation with the tories? Slag off the young people of the inner city.
2. If you are planning a free school, shouldn't it be in partnership with the community, and in response to a demand for there being a school? They first tried on N Lambeth and were turned down ostensibly because Lambeth (supported by parents) are prioritising primary places, so now they have landed in Tooting. Is this about working with a community, or finding a site to build a school for which you get an unadvertised headship job and create you personal vision of how you think it should all run?

I don't know how they will open in 2012 as the site isn't confirmed yet, is it?

Who knows, maybe it will be good and just what the area needs, but I can't bear that woman!

(I wouldn't be surprised if the Lambeth decision was based on wanting to flog the site for money, as options in the N of the borough are limited if you don't have faith credentials, but that's another story)

If you google Katherine Birbalasingh you will find out some of the back story to this....but as far as the site goes until fairly recently I think they were going for a Lambeth site. That fell through so they were forced to look elsewhere.