AIBU to think this particular Free School is a bad idea?

[nlondondad]

This posting will be of interest to anyone in London worried that there may not be any primary place for their child because it involves the expenditure of public money to set up a Free School in an area where it is not needed, thereby diverting money which could be used to set up a school where it is needed.

It will be of particual interest to anyone with a child in an Islington School as the proposed Free School will result in a reduction of 3 million pounds in the capital budget for islington schools. Puzzled?

read on......

Whitehall Park School is a proposed Free School for the London Borough of Islington. It was announced in June 2013.The proposers are a for-profit company, Bellevue Ltd who run a number of fee paying schools, both in the UK and Switzerland. The main shareholders of Bellevue are a hedge fund based in Zurich. They have stated that their preferred site is the old Ashmount Primary School site. This site is vacant because Ashmount School has moved a short distance to a new building, on a new site. Bellevue have asked that the vacant site and building be obtained for them by the Minister; the Minister has power under the Academies act to appropriate it without paying any compensation to Islington Council.

Islington wanted to use the site for social housing, as the particular area is well supplied with school places with the capacity for more if required in existing schools. They could expect to get a bit over three million pounds from a Housing Association for the site – money required for repairs to Islington Schools.

So if the Free School goes ahead on this basis there will be no three million for Islington schools for repairs, no extra social housing to relieve overcrowding, and the loss of other housing related Government grants some of which would be spent on education.

It now seems that a consultation is being held about this by Bellevue except they have not told anyone about it. The only mention of it is on their website, but not on the home page but several clicks in, under a button labelled "consultation" which before pointed to a brief note about a previous consultation saying it was over...

This is the announcement: I am not clear when it was actually made.

"Consultation

Bellevue Place Education Trust (BPET) is entering into an additional period of consultation relating to the site of the proposed Whitehall Park School. The consultation period is open now and will run until 12 noon on Tuesday 21st January 2014.

Following discussions with the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency, BPET is now able to name the preferred site of the school as the site of the former Ashmount Primary School at Ashmount Road, Islington N19 3BH.

The Trust welcomes any comments in respect of the plan to locate the proposed school on this site. To participate in the consultation, please email any comments to [email protected] Specifically, we would like your answer to the following questions:

Do you think the proposed Whitehall Park School should open on the site of the former Ashmount School at Ashmount Road, Islington N19 3BH
Please explain your reasons for your answer to question 1
Please give any further comments that you would like to be considered in our consultation
All comments must be received by 12 noon on 21st January 2014"

My own views on this are well known, I shall respond by opposing it. By posting it here I am giving you the opportunity to express your own opinion, for or against. An opportunity Bellevue seem to wish to limit....

The existing school hasn’t had enough money spent on it over time, and needed modernising, ie it doesn’t have a disabled lift, so only ground floors accesible to wc's, but is in perfectly useable shape as a working school, and pupils were there until last summer. It's currently being rented out to film companies. (Jack Whitehall comedy Bad Education was filmed there)

Islington didn’t want to pay for repairs and modernisation and preferred to get rid of it and make money out of selling of the site. They acted like it was a done deal when it wasn’t.

It’s a densely populated area with a lot of estates and there aren’t fresh school sites, so to lose the site is to lose a local school there forever. Islington says people don’t need one, that’s hotly disputed.

Re neighbouring borough parents: it's very close to the junction of two neighbouring boroughs (the end of the road is the boundary) and it’s also their nearest state school. Two nearby Haringey schools are Catholic and Cof E, which means some parents either don’t want or can’t get places.
Those parents are unable to get places in the next school in Islington, Haringey or Camden. There’s also an expected places boom for all three boroughs, though Islington seem to not want to be transparent about that. Bulge classes are often seen as the answer.

We’ve been told any company who is allowed to make shareholder profits out of running a school there will have to pay for repairs, if they don’t run for private profit they don’t, the government do.

Re money on free school consultation, that was happening anyway, that free schools seeking to open one in Islington and will go to another named site if not the Asmount school one.

Most would rather an ordinary state school, but think it’s daft to not kill two birds with one stone here, because it gives a local school for now, and keeps the site for the future.

(additionally, it means the other non purpose built site won’t have to be paid for to be converted to a school.)

Please be aware I'm just doing my best to explain the other side of the story fairly, I'm not the best person for it.

Merry the existing school didn't think it a priority to move. Lots wrongly thought the building was going to the overcrowded senior school a block away. A lot of opinions have changed since the move was rock and hard placed on them, some people are saying oh well lets have the money, some are saying no, don't lose it for the future.

There's a massive estate sprawl already and a fight to stop ghettoization, from the tenents already dealing with turf wars and other problems from too many packed in too tight. There's lots of smaller sites that non estate housing could be built on. There aren't new large sites that schools can.

Binky you’re spot on, the argument is if Islington council should be allowed to remove the school of the people and make £3million, and another estate added to the estate sprawl already there, and make even more people with children competing for places.

It is a loan of the land and a purpose built school.

That offends some. Others want to make money by selling it, others want a school place most of all, others want to make sure there’s one for the future.

The free school wouldn’t get to keep the site if they closed, what Islington’s scared of is because of the way they’ve acted, and the protest against it, government have effectively taken the site and told them there needs to be a school there.

They claim government could then keep the site and not return it if a free school failed. Reality is government could continue to insist a school stays there, and they can’t sell off the site, exactly what local people have petitioned for.

I accept the idea that it could still be a useful educational space, and completely see the point about faith schools.

However, I am suspicious that funding free schools to use sub optimal spaces is just a way to avoid capital expenditure and repairs and avoid accessibility issues.

As a matter of fact the closest primary schools to the old Ashmount site are from closest to furthest.

Coleridge (to the east ), 50 metres further on and to the south of Coleridge the (moved) Ashmount School, and to the west, St Josephs RC school if you are Catholic and further to the west same distance away from the old site as the new Ashmount building, Hargrave Park school. To the north west St Michaels C of E school in Highgate. All are at least OfSted good, one is outstanding, and Coleridge just got listed in Tatler! (for what that is worth).

All these are reachable by walking distance from the old site, and in the past have been used by people in the area.

This year, entry autumn 2013, the catchment areas for Coleridge and Ashmount reached just beyond the old Ashmount site, when waiting list offers are taken into account. That is just to the West of it, in the direction of Hargrave Park, which at start of term had eight vacant places, so in 2013 there was a surplus of places. And of course there was no one without a place.

St Joseph's and St Michael's are both Haringey schools with some local Haringey parents now displaced by even more Islington parents adding to pressure. Those parents can get into the old Ashmount site catchment, but not according to them, the other Islington schools.

Merry the council was already avoiding capital expenditure and repairs and avoiding accessibility issues, so regardless of rights or wrongs about who provides it, for parents it doesn't feel any different.

Which parents? Don't all parents want their children to have a school that isn't unnecessarily occupying management time with short term patch ups and compromises?

as it happens, St Josephs is in Islington, not Haringey.

www.st-josephs.islington.sch.uk/

But in this area on the boroufg boundary Islington parents send their children to Haringey schools and Haringey parents to Islington schools. And camden gets involved a bit, also. The fact that you, @just did not actually know which borough St Josephs is in makes the point I think.

Housing really is desperately needed all over London, particularly with the bedroom tax. I would have thought that if there are schools in the area which are undersubscribed it is madness to open another school in preference to providing housing.

I thought I would post here, one by one, short answers to each of the Bellevue questions. Here is the first one.

BELLEVUE QUESTION

Do you think the proposed Whitehall Park School should open on the site of the former Ashmount School at Ashmount Road, Islington N19 3BH

MY RESPONSE

No

(Now thereIs a surprise!)

Yes you're correct, and I'm wrong, tired and ill, and shouldn't really have tried to object, should I.
What Harringey parents get told is theres 220 more Islington children in Haringey schools than the other way round and thats part of why they can't get places there but can try what was Ashmount.

As I said before I'm really not the person to try and represent the other side of the argument, I think it's a shame some of the more equipped haven't spelt out things, and I've never bothered to oppose you on here before, because you are who you are and I and many others aren't equipped to argue with you. That's why they went to people who could.

I just wanted people to know there was something much bigger than the way you've presented it all in your OP, before you used Mumsnet AIBU to raise numbers for your campaign based on not liking free schools without mentioning the rest or that a lot of local people don't agree with you.
I think I've done that, how ever badly, and will leave you to get on with it.

I am sorry you are ill, but in all candour if you make mistaken comments that you are unwell does not mean they should not be corrected.

You are quite correct that more Islington children cross to haringey Schools then from Haringey to Islington. But this merely reflects the fact that Coleridge School in Haringey, which is well regarded, is right on the border with Islington and takes 120 children into reception each year.

Ashmount which although having moved closer to Crouch End than it was is actually further from the Haringey border than it was on the old site and which is further from the border than Coleridge takes in 60 reception age children a year.

So basically on similer enrollment numbers you would expect twice as many children to go to Haringey as cross from Haringey to Islington.

Finally I really dont know who you think I am, and making continuing innuendos about who I might be (and saying that I post on other fora using the same, or similar handle to here, which I do not) does not help.

I am left feeling that you are chasing a shadow, the person you think I am.

I would also point out that my objection to this Free School is NOT based on "not liking Free Schools" It is based on the particular facts of this case.

This is a summary of my own response to the consultation.

BELLEVUE QUESTION

Do you think the proposed Whitehall Park School should open on the site of the former Ashmount School at Ashmount Road, Islington N19 3BH

MY RESPONSE

No

BELLEVUE QUESTION

Please explain your reasons for your answer to question 1

MY RESPONSE

There is no evidence of a shortage of places in the immediate area. In Autumn 2013 there was a surplus of places, and the Local Authority expects this to remain the case. The local authority view on this was supported by an Independent Planning Inspector. Including the current surplus of school places in the area, were the Free School to open in 2014 then for all places to fill in that year would require an increase of 30 per cent in demand for reception places.. In a single year with no new housing. This is not credible. As all the existing community schools in the local area are rated at least "good" by OfSted, one is rated outstanding, this means there is no shortage of places in "good" schools either. As the majority of local schools are secular, adding an extra secular school does not increase variety of provision.

BELLEVUE QUESTION

Please give any further comments that you would like to be considered in our consultation -

MY RESPONSE

1. If the site is taken from Islington without payment then there will be a financial loss to Islington Community schools. Children who go to the Free School will be in premises secured by in effect, rendering the facilities in Islington Community Schools underfunded. The anger this will cause amongst parents will be enormous, and so will be the hostility faced by this project from the community. This is clearly undesirable.

1. The school building was left because even refurbished at great cost it would produce an inferior environment. So it is surely not right to use as a Free School and could not be value for money. A demolish and rebuild would make more sense but the cost of doing that would be large. If the school does not fill, and all the evidence is it will not, that would be a waste. There would be a public scandal in the context of an existing climate of ill feeling.

1. Building a new school where it is not needed is not a reasonable use of public money when other parts of London have a shortage of places.

And all responses (whatever your view) have to be in by NOON

TOMORROW (tuesday 21)

Apropos of nothing, I would just like to quote nlondondad from another thread on Mumsnet

"I should declare that I am a governor at Ashmount Primary School, and a member of the Islington Schools Forum."

So???

I think what TheNewBrown is saying is, if the thread was called 'AIBU to think this particular free school is a good idea' and it wasn't made clear that the poster was a governor of an allied free school and also a member of a body whose aim was supporting free schools in general, you might just think there was an undeclared interest (although the comparison isn't exact, you get the idea hopefully). In light of this, it could be considered a disingenuous question, as it is not really asking for an answer but merely seeking to enforce a predetermined conclusion. But hey, this is after all the AIBU area which is founded upon a hotbed of over-emotive, knee-jerk irrationality and nlondondad should be free to post whatever he likes. Any Proper discussion of this topic though, should be over on education perhaps, or AIBU?

As the deadline for the consultation is now past I would imagine that this thread will now fade out...

Howver I suppose I should remark that people on mumsnet post using a "handle" or nickname. So there is a sense in which almost all people are anonymous, and in fact identifying yourself too exactly is disapproved of by the people at Mumsnet central.

However what emerged in this discussion was that as the OP I was being "accused" there is no other way of putting it, of being someone I was not, in order to try, it seems, to discredit my arguments, not by answering them, but by having a go at me. And in pursuit of this various things were said about me which were untrue -I corrected them in the thread.

I have posted in the past, so there is no concealment of it that I am a governor at Ashmount primary School and a member of the Islington Schools' Forum (which is an official rather than voluntary body). This is partly how I know some of the things I do.

But whether my arguments are sound is nothing to do with who I am, or what I am. Its a core part of the way Mumsnet functions.

Judge the message on what is said, not who said them.

@foxmonaut

"Any Proper discussion of this topic though, should be over on education perhaps, or AIBU?"

Excellent point, in fact I posted in primary education with the same OP at the same time. Its here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1969469-An-under-publicised-consultation-an-unneeded-free-School-and-a-misuse-of-public-money

But in the same time it got eight messages, whereas this thread has seventyone (counting this one), I think its just things in AIBU get seen by more people. And as I was publicising the consultation the more eyeballs the better. Also in this case, this thread was going to have served its purpose after basically a long weekend, and that seemed to me to fit the way topics in AIBU vanish down the list very quickly once the pace of posting slows.

So if anyone reading this now DID want to continue the discussion the obvious place is in Primary Ed. (I would have thought)

I wish to reply here, about my mistakes in posting (should anyone care)

If you know about how the school came to be moved, and what’s happened, then questioning some of what, and who, is behind the messages you’re being fed, and the spin being put on them, is perfectly reasonable, imo, especially in the circumstances.

Initially I was shocked to see the OP in the way it was being spun, on MN AIBU, and waited for someone knowledgeable and able to challenge it, to come along. When it didn't happen I tried (I accept badly) to challenge the spin and ask people to investigate that for themselves.

IMO the OP's content was misleadingly spun, and believing it made by someone who holds a position that means they're involved in how things ended up where they are, and that's very relevant to what they’re now doing, and past r/l experience that any objections from ill eqipped people just become a further vehicle for them, and being an ordinary poster not a seasoned campaigner, and knowing MNHQ rules say you mustn’t out people, I did my best to work round it, however badly, and tried not to be goaded into breaking any rules.

That apparently appeared to be attacking the poster rather than the spin on the post, which wasn't actually my intent.

When challenged I started doubting myself thinking being ill might be clouding my judgement, (which it is anyway) and if 'nlondondad' was genuinely just a random dad, 'on message', not involved in what lead to this mess, and knowing exactly what they were now doing, then I was being horribly unfair to some poor bloke, and apologised if that was the case. (A pm later confirmed I wasn’t which probably affected my tone, though I didn't intend that.)

Had the OP (as in the content not person) been more transparent and IMO honest about the situation, and how it came about that government got involved and who actually asked them to,

rather than inferring government may just be potentially randomly interfering with a council because a free school asks them to,

then no problem with it’s seeking to use MN AIBU for fast traffic to campaign for extra objections to get the end result he wants, which he's entitled to do, or for that matter care if he did or didn't acknowledge who he was and his role in things being in the situation they now are, and it wouldn't have lead me to try and open my (inefficient) gob.

With hindsight I should not have posted at all, and should have refered the whole thing to MNHQ asking them to decide if the spin of the OP should be allowed to stand or not, given who the poster was and their involvement and role in the disputed descisions made, and if some things should be pointed out, challenged etc. Lesson learned.

@Just gettingonwithit

In the first instance "who I am" is not relevant, anymore than the fact that no one knows who you are is relevant.

In the second instance you dont know who I am as you have made three statements about me which are not true. These were that I was part of a group of parents, apparently in Crouch End (I do not live in Crouch End) that I had not had any children in Ashmount Primary School (all my children went to Ashmount) and that I post on other electronic places using a handle similar to nlondondad (which I do not do). I am not going to "out" myself, I do not see why I should, but it is clear you suspect me of being someone I am not.

In the third instance everything in the OP is carefully evidenced, in fact it consists almost completely of factual statements, based on publically available information from Islington Council, from the DfE, and from Bellevue Ltd.

I admit that I do have the opinion that as the consultation was so poorly advertised one could suspect Bellevue of not wanting people to know about it. That point has been put to Bellevue by way of the DfE and they have yet to respond with an explanation, which does not mean they do not have one.

Finally of course I accept there are always two sides in a debate (often more!) which is why I ended the OP by writing

"My own views on this are well known, I shall respond by opposing it. By posting it here I am giving you the opportunity to express your own opinion, for or against."

However you write that you "should have referred the whole thing to MUMSNET HQ"

To which I reply either you do, or you do not; by all means refer. You are perfectly entitled to do that.

As Justgettingonwithit wrote:

"With hindsight I should not have posted at all, and should have refered the whole thing to MNHQ asking them to decide if the spin of the OP should be allowed to stand or not, given who the poster was and their involvement and role in the disputed descisions made, and if some things should be pointed out, challenged etc. Lesson learned."

With the clear implication that they thought my behaviour so improper there ought to be a complaint to Mumset, well I referred the thread to Mumsnet HQ myself for their view. And, after a bit of a gap, suggesting they did not see the issue as a priority they wrote:

"We think this is OK"

So perhaps we can leave it there, with the suggestion that the thing to do is to debate the issues, rather than make insinuations about the alleged identity of the OP accomapnaied by spurious allegations of misconduct on the part of the OP.

(And, oh yes, I am the OP before I am confused of further concealment)

nlondondad With the clear implication that they thought my behaviour so improper there ought to be a complaint to Mumset

No, with what I thought was the clear implication I thought your behaviour devious, but with hindsight wasn't the person who should make the descision and should have let MNHQ decide, not take it upon myself, and that was the lesson I'd learned.