To ask how this can be anything other than racism?

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local opposition to proposed new secondary state boarding school. Here

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/apr/21/labour-race-row-west-sussex-academy

I listened to some woman on the radio saying she was concerned for the children being part of this "experiment". Really? It is surely NIMBYism to oppose this isn't it? Lucky children who live in Lambeth I say, and I hope it means that you all get a better education.

He's resigned from the Tory Party - has he resigned as a Cllr?
Have the local residents distanced themselves from his remarks?

Why should the local residents distance themselves from his remarks. He made them, they didn't.

Because its something that has the potential to negatively affect the local community while at the same time having no benefit to the local community.

There may be the benefit of a few jobs, but tbh, that wouldn't make a lot of difference to me if it were to happen in the area I live in because I don't live in an area with low employment.

I don't know what the employment figure are for the area that is going to be affected by this, so that may or may not be relevant.

PatPig:

If I was a local residents group voicing non-racist concerns about any form of local development i would emphatically distance myself from comments like that if made by my local elected representative - unless of couse, I agreed with them!

What sort of negative consequences are you thinking of?

The ones I can think of are things like traffic, possibly more use of local services eg GP possibly putting them under strain, maybe exta buildings affecting views, but not more than a new housing estate (which may or may not bother you).

And it's in big grounds set away from the village. The pupils will be there 4 nights a week.

Yes councillors comments totally wrong. But is there demand for this school from lambeth parents/kids? I live in lambeth + wouldnt want dd to go to boarding school (even mid week only). I guess those proposing school know re demand but i would think it would need a wider catchment than one school in lambeth. I think good schools where people live better for kids + community than shipping kids out. Dh went to state school that had boarders many of whom were military kids + so not from one geographical area. Just feels like a weird idea to me - for the kids/families not the villagers etc.

Funnily enough the same thing happened 110 years ago when this school for underprivileged London kids moved to Sussex:

www.christs-hospital.org.uk/

It'll be interesting to see how this new experiment pans out.

Depending how things pan out with the bump, I cold be tempted by mid-week boarding. Never say never! No idea re demand though.

But the point remains, the school that was already there (that had to close down previously, so no, they haven't shut a blind school for this - although it does seem to be a bit of a nationwide thing at the moment, the school for blind children near us has also closed and is now up for sale) was only set up for a maximum 100 pupils, this new school will be at least 600, so they need to do extensive building work - a lot of the woods etc will be cleared to make space, the old listed building the school is currently housed in will have modern extensions that they are saying will double it's size. While the main school house is there, they are effectively building a new school, due to the numbers they are going to ship out weekly to this school.

600 extra teenagers in a village will have an impact on local services, from medical services, roads, suddenly having those numbers going into the village etc.

It's not just racist villagers not wanting 'others' in their village, you'd get local objection to a school being built in a small village location (and the scale of the changes does look like they will be effectively building a new school) even if local children got to go to it. Take away any local benefit (of increaased school places for local families) then it's hardly surprising it's meeting a lot of objections.

I can imagine contexts where his concern would be understandable but his comments as quoted there are blatantly racist.

Wouldn't it be better to improve the schools in Lambeth and the area as a whole rather than transplanting an elite few and leaving the rest to rot?

This seems to be a tacit way of saying 'Yes, the area's shit, the schools are rubbish, and you have no chance unless you leave'.

I listened to the Radio 4 interview with Anne Reynolds the Chairman of the local Parish Council and felt her views to be established NIMBY and felt curious enough to look into the proposal via the Parish Council website and found there amongst others a link to the Daily Telegraph online article on the School. Well, the majority of the comments were just horrible and made me ashamed to have been a one time rural resident. But then I remembered that the West Sussex countryside is now mostly populated by well-to-do downsizers/downpricers/quality of lifers from London who have priced out the original residents who had a far greater heart than this nimbyist lot.

Bridget, it isn't about schools being shit though.

I can see why residents might have some concerns, but I think 95% of the reasons behind their objections are because it will be lots of black male teenagers and many many people who live in places like are at best limited in their experience of black people and at worst openly racist.

They will miss the point that this is about putting well behaved, well achieving children in an environment away from negative/gang influences.

The locals seem to think its about moving gang members down to the country to wreak havoc and rape their daughters in the woods.

97% are going to be black or asian so what is the other 3% made up of ?

Im gonna take a guess and say white

My god, carnage in the making.

"Wouldn't it be better to improve the schools in Lambeth and the area as a whole rather than transplanting an elite few and leaving the rest to rot?"

That depends whether or not you believe in miracles.

This seems to be a tacit way of saying 'Yes, the area's shit, the schools are rubbish, and you have no chance unless you leave'.

If it is, they'd be right.

I'm confused as the why they are opening the school and what their target pupil is. Why the need to leave their own area and board? If it's plucking potentially high achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds or sink estate schools and giving them a chance to succeed away from any negative peer pressure then I suppose it's no different to grammar school, or a bursary/scholarship at a private school, but if its aim is to take challenging, badly behaved pupils out of the mainstream and put them in a more controlled environment akin to a reform school/bootcamp then I can understand the fear and trepidation of the local community about the effects this might have on them.

Although that man needs to have a serious word with himself about how clumsily and offensively he is expressing things.

Anyway, this is already happening to one degree or another in most state boarding schools, where the fees are paid by social services for 'looked after' young people, as an alternative to fostering.

Why shouldn't we try to I prove schools and try options like this to help some children at the same time? They're not mutually exclusive.

Also, not all of Lambeth is shit by any means!

*improve

They will take bog standard primary pupils in their primary school I think who tend to do quite well as it is a good school and then waste all that earyl promise at local secondaries.

I am sure there will kbe tons of parents keen on it - many of the original countries where the children come from in Africa, Caribbean etc have a long tradition that the best richest children go to boarding schools. I was in Lagos for work about a year ago and a few people there were sending chidlren over here for boarding. I think they probably have a much better parent body in terms of acceptance of the benefits of boarding than most all white working class English secondary schools where there is no tradition of thinking a disciplined boarding school is a jolly good thing.

I laughed at the Christs HS comparison - very apt, very true.

West Sussex if that is where it is is particularly twee. I was at the most wonderful country house there last year. The grounds and drives were like something out of a film.

It will indeed be a normal, varied intake from a school that is doing well by it's pupils by many accounts.

In fact the majority of secondary schools in Lambeth are good or very good schools. It is the social environment many children find themselves in which can create educational disadvantage. Still the vast majority f young people are looking to do their best. Some families may choose this option for schooling to increase the chances of that. No one will be sent against their will.