Russell Education Trust/Russell Group Universities

straggle, there is detail of the consultation here.

Note the page also says the steering group is very happy to receive views and questions at any time in advance of or following the consultation period.

Suggest you send views by email rather than via Mumsnet though.

I didn't assert anything. I speculated that more boys than girls would apply from around that particular admissions point. Perhaps I expressed this badly. I withdrew my post anyway. The admissions policy is likely to change when there is an actual site, even if it hasn't changed since the school proposal went to the DfE.

The school's website notes that there currently no science specialist school for boys in the area as there is for girls. It may appeal particularly to boys for this reason, or it may not. I did not say or imply that it should not/could not be a co-ed school.

The school also noted back in May 2012 that it would be publishing details of the admissions policy for wider consultation. I'm not sure if this has taken place yet or which stakeholders will be/have been consulted. I don't know where the school will be sited or whether this will be announced in time for school offers to be made and accepted.

No point in speculating further.

straggle It is you that asserted that such a nonsensical admissions process had been proposed and that it has since been changed to the current inclusive process. W&G explained to you that the current process as explained fully on their website, the one agreed with the LA, has never changed. The only thing I am finding inadequately explained is how you came by this misapprehension in the first place, what possible explanation you could have for it and why you are using it to imply, I am not quite sure what. Anyway if you are still confused I suggest you take it up with Turing. They are extremely open and very quick to answer all queries and questions which is why they have earned the trust of many of the community's parents, certainly my neighbours.

W&G is right to suggest that it is up to the school to explain its own admissions policies, not the LA, and that it is required to consult before given final approval to open.

That seems to have been a feature of this thread, having to produce evidence to defend unsubstantiated attacks.

As you say hard to produce evidence that something never existed in the first place, but I think it is worth applying a common sense test.

So why would a school that set out to be inclusive, was born partly out of frustration with exclusive faith and gender selection then propose a gender selective admissions process?

And why would that gender selective selection criteria be inclusive of girls beyond a 1.5 mile catchment of Waldegrave when no one knows what the Waldegrave catchment will be in any given year. It may have stretched to 1.5 miles last year, one with a smaller pupil cohort than previous years, and even smaller in relation to next years which will be 146 pupils larger, but in previous years it was as small as 1.2 miles (refusals in Copthall and Sherland). In all likelihood it will be yet smaller next year. Matthew Paul, the Education Officer responsible at the Council knows this full well, as do the people involved with Turing.

And what was included in this alleged process to take account of Waldegrave's B catchment?

So girls who are between 1 mile and 1.5 miles from Waldegrave might may well find themselves excluded from both schools. Whilst girls in the B catchment will be able to apply to both and may well get places at both, if Turing is not oversubscribed locally (which you could reasonably predict for a new school, especially one that has not announced a site).

As I say it would have made no sense.........

I can't provide evidence, but you would have no evidence to the contrary either, because no consultation has taken place yet, so no opinions would have been published on the school's website. It feels odd to apply for a school without an announced site. That is a feature of several free schools but some have delayed application rounds before the site was confirmed.

But I agree that most people switched off with talk of Catholic and Swedish 'sink' schools, planning laws and holes.

straggle I am a local parent, not employed by RET, but as I made clear several posts ago, grateful that a group of parents (implicit in that is that I am not one of them) stepped up to the considerable challenge of bringing into being a much needed and wanted school for our community.

And unless you can provide some evidence then I genuinely found your "concerns" odd, not something I have heard from any other parents. Given Turing's aims and the reality of the Waldegrave catchment it makes no sense. But please if you have genuine concerns clarify them with the Turing team. I am quite sure we long ago ceased to be of any interest to the vast majority of mumsnetters.

are employed by RET support the school/RET

W&G I was aware that this was the criteria for 2014 entry but also believed the 100% allocation from the admissions point was temporary. Your proposed site has obviously changed. I note your website's statement which says for 2015 you will split places between the Admissions Point and the school site itself. If 2015 admissions criteria is to be coordinated between schools affected by Turing House, however, there is a deadline of March for them to carry out consultations - otherwise they may have to wait until 2016 entry to make changes if your new site is closer to theirs than anticipated. I appreciate that your school would be exempt from until it has signed its funding agreement.

Shooting if you are employed by RET, please consider how parents may feel if you dismiss their concerns about the effect of admissions policies as 'ridiculous' and 'odd'.

straggle very odd post. Where do you get this from? I think this is now getting somewhat ridiculous. Perhaps email Matthew Paul, the Council's Education Officer responsible as well as Turing to get all this straight in your mind, if you actually want to get it straight in your mind. I have already shared with you the Council's school place forecasts, together with an assessment of the risk they underestimated need, no one thinks they overestimated it. As to the stuff on the admissions point I have never heard that before from anyone, it sounds just plain odd.

Straggle, the 2014 policy hasn't changed. It was always 100% around the admission point.

The website states that the policy for 2015 and beyond will take the school site (which hasn't yet been announced) into account. There will be a consultation on that at the relevant time.

As this conversation has now strayed from the rebuttal of public allegations, to the interpretation of school policies, I suggest you email further questions and concerns to the school.

Straggle, if parents are confused or worried about the things you mention they can email the school. They will get a rapid and helpful response.

I've mentioned the rationale for the admissions point several times in previous posts, in the context that it was all about meeting need. It has not changed. It is as agreed with the LA at the centre point of the existing coed schools where a black hole of provision will materialise. It is clearly explained here www.turinghouseschool.org.uk/admissionspoint.php I am absolutely sure that parents in that area are not in the least confused, none that I know of certainly, since they were the ones most worried about school places and grateful for the proposed school, and the agreed admissions point. The parents of boys are most concerned but Waldegraves catchment does not stretch very far up Hampton Road these days, and will get smaller.

The Council's proposal for a new school is to meet the need in addition to Turing. It will not be big enough to meet the need alone, even on the Council's forecasts.

I wasn't the one who brought up the Catholic school, 'sink schools' or primary school places. But the judicial review was a separate issue that attracted national interest because it was testing the law. The free school was suggested by a small group of parents but was also popular among those worried about related to a separate change in feeder school policy that had nothing to do with the Catholic school.

The free school bid has some good elements to it, and until the LA came out with its own free school plan, seemed to be the only new non-faith school on the table. But it has evolved from being a parent-led school to a sponsored academy that is part of a chain and W&G linked to the governance structure that implies fewer elected parent governors than other local schools. And the admissions point has changed. It's now next to the girls' school, which suggests it should be a boys' school - but it isn't, and some parents are finding that confusing.

Expressions of interest are not the same as applications, for which we don't yet know numbers. While the lack of site would obviously put people off, there's no risk in applying in addition to the London CAF and no need to rank a preference. A lot of parents are worried that it will affect waiting lists if people hold on to two offers.

Quite right wriggling

straggle Some of the people who started RISC are Humanists, several are not. Like the Accord Coalition, it's founders and supporters include people of faith, who subscribe to various belief systems / ideologies and none, and that was reflected in the various spokespeople who spoke up at the Scrutiny and Cabinet meetings. It never had an anti faith agenda, it was always about inclusivity and Vince Cable reflected the strength of parental anxiety about school places in calling on the school to at least concede 50 / 50 inclusive admissions.

I don't think you can quote disinterest in a consultation about the futures of three schools few felt any identification with as lack of interest in education. If you need evidence of the demand for a new inclusive comprehensive school like Orleans Park, Teddington or Waldegrave (albeit that is gender selective) then look at the fact that each of them had around 1000 parents making them first preference in the last round and that was from a year when there was actually a slight dip in the cohort. Next year there will be 140+ more pupils chasing places and the Open Days have been overrun with anxious parents . When Turing invited expressions of interest in what they had to offer they received an avalanche, I can't remember exactly the numbers but within days they had more than enough evidence of demand.

The issue is perhaps why the sponsored Academies have not inspired that level of interest, I really don't understand in the case of Richmond Park Academy, it seems to have inspiring leadership and lots of positive buzz from existing parents and it is hard to see what more they could do, I suspect that Shene School was so bad for so long that it is engrained in the culture of the area that it just isn't an option, so from the time your children are in nursery you are working on plans to go private, move, or develop elaborate plans to find other options....... Twickenham and Hampton Academies, for all their iffy OFSTEDs are all but full, and Twickenham Academy would have been full at first allocations if some of the parents in it's catchment who didn't get any of their preferences had not been offered the very undersubscribed new St Richard Reynolds, though it was not the closest school . I am not by the way seeking to make capital out of that, it is a new school and new schools take time to establish.

Straggle, you're trying to reignite an old debate.

Members of British Humanist Association started the anti-Catholic school campaign. A lot of people signed petitions for and against - faith schools are divisive. A few people wrote letters. If there was general 'parental dissatisfaction with existing state provision', few expressed it during the sponsored academies consultation when only 20 people replied.

straggle RISC was an anti inclusive school movement and a broad coalition of people, some of whom, like me had no problem with a Catholic School being established. It's momentum came primarily from parental dissatisfaction that our Council was gifting the best site for a new school that would exclude the majority of the children in our community at a time when we were facing a huge increase in pupil numbers. In an environment where many parents were already unhappy with existing LA provision it was the final straw. Indeed arguably a lot of the momentum behind the campaign for a Catholic School came from parental dissatisfaction with existing state provision. As was highlighted at the time there were well trodden paths from the Catholic Schools into Waldegrave, where the admissions process didn't effectively exclude applicants from Catholic Schools via the Link school system, and private schools like LEH (even though there is a private Catholic School within a couple of miles). I think the ferocity vibrancy of the debate reflected the strong feelings about The LAs record of provision on all sides.

And it reflected the strong commitment that exists in the borough to our children's education. I agree with wrigglingthat it is sad that all this mud is being slung around without anyone conceding that many people really are working very hard to improve our schools and ensure that all children have a chance of the best possible education. That is what makes the success of the London challenge so heartening, it showed it could be done.

I had to have a small smirk at the debate on procurement. In my career I have seen the pendulum swing between centralisation and devolvement of procurement in business organisations so many times, like so many management practises it all goes in cycles. I well remember my mother, an experienced Deputy Head, tearing her hair out in 1989 when procurement was taken out of LA hands and she was suddenly landed with the challenge of getting enough coal to keep the kids warm within budget. Crazy.....

The strength of feeling was more anti-Catholic school than pro-free school (against the LA spending £10 million to buy a site for a Catholic school).

RET has a lot of useful experience to offer. But it is problematic being associated with the wider RET chain when most of their schools are faith schools, which will continue to be controversial where other free schools become more established. It doesn't help when the Becket Keys headteacher defines his school as 'collaborating' with other RET schools but otherwise being in competition with the rest ( p.3). I can understand why that school has generated a lot of criticism.

So what you are suggesting is that there was not sufficient local strength of feeling to get a school up and running without the involvement of a partner?

There's no doubt about the strength of feeling, as was discussed at length earlier in the thread. That was the catalyst for the school, and will be one of the success factors, but it takes more than that. It also takes expertise and experience, as well as local enthusiasm.

So what you are suggesting is that there was not sufficient local strength of feeling to get a school up and running without the involvement of a partner?

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/anger-at-16321m-spent-on-schools-consultants-2275172.html

...and it came to pass!