New Secondary schools for Richmond!

[BayJay]

Richmond Council recently published a White Paper outlining plans for Secondary education in the borough (cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=23719). They want new 6th forms in every school, and would need to decrease current Yr7 intakes to accomodate that. To offset those decreases they are talking about creating two new secondary schools. One of those new schools would be a Roman Catholic school.

The Roman Catholic community in the borough are currently disadvantaged by the "link" system (www.st-marys.richmond.sch.uk/Newsletter%20Link%20letter%20for%202011%20links%20(2).pdf). Because the Catholic primaries are not linked to any secondaries in the borough, their children tend to go to a combination of out-of-borough Catholic secondaries (which are mostly rated as Outstanding), grammar schools and private schools, though some of the girls do go to Waldegrave, which is not part of the link system. Note that there is no reason, in principle, why the Catholic Secondaries couldn't be linked to local community schools, but because many of their children have other options, they simply don't meet the "25% rule" required to form a link. (See an example set of transfer figures at www.st-james.richmond.sch.uk/Admin/Uploads/Docs/StJamesSchool_Parents_NewsLetter_270910.pdf).

This raises several questions in my mind:

1. Does the problem necessarily need to be solved by providing a Catholic Secondary, or are there alternative solutions that would benefit the community as a whole (e.g. reforming the link system)?
2. Does the majority of the Catholic community specifically want to be educated separately from the rest of us, or is it the case that, like everyone else, they simply want an outstanding education for their children, and find that the Catholic route is often the best way of achieving that?
3. If Catholics had more options for transferring to outstanding community schools locally (as many already do, to Waldegrave), would they choose those options over travelling to a single-faith school in a neighbouring borough?
4. I accept that there will always be very religious people who want to segregate themselves, but would I be right in asserting that there are also large numbers of Catholics who would be happy to attend community schools, provided that gave them the same level of academic excellence that can be found in many Catholic options?
5. If a new Catholic secondary school is created, it is likely to have an entrance policy that requires a priest's reference (as per the majority of existing Catholic schools). How do people feel about that?
6. If a state-funded Catholic School is created in the borough, would non-Catholic parents also like the option of sending their children there, provided they weren't barred by the admission system?

I'd be interested to hear your opinions!

Seenbutnotheard : you were mislead; the 2010 Lib Dem manifesto promised:

?What we will do:
. . Increase primary school places by 840 over and above the 1,050 additional places already provided.
Increase the number of secondary places available by continuing to invest capital in our schools.
. . Raise all secondary schools to good or outstanding Ofsted standard.?

Funny that, as I have a letter from a Lib Dem counsellor which states that it "has been Lib Dem policy for about 8 years to support the demand for a local Catholic secondary school."

He does go on to say if there is a need for a community school this has to be adressed first - I am hoping that the information provided by the Director of Children's Services (that you kindly linked to, and is also on the local Lib Dem website, that I believe you manage) will be enough to convince him that the need for a Catholic School is now and that a community school has the potential to do more harm than good.

opps - my spelling is bad, but usually not that bad.
I clearly meant Councillor, not counsellor (although I feel that I may soon need some counselling as this debate continues to go around in circles)

I am praying that Michael Gove makes a decision soon...

Some are truly motivated by a Catholic education, and would choose a Catholic school even if it didn't perform as well as alternatives, but many are gratefully falling back on their Catholic heritage to get their child into a better school. Come on, you know that's true.

Hester I have to say I find that comment extremely offensive! A Catholic education is something as parents we promise to endeavour to provide for our children where God is first at the centre of our lives. This may be something you don't understand ,and I accept that, but it is something that is extremly important to practicing catholics. I appreciate you are upset but please be respectful of the deep faith of others

"I am hoping that the information provided by the Director of Children's Services ... will be enough to convince him that the need for a Catholic School is now"
Seenbutnotheard, the Scrutiny Committee asked for that data because they weren't happy with the qualitative story given in the previous meeting. It's that committee's job to scrutinise the numbers and look for the holes. If numerical arguments are produced to post-rationalise policy, then holes can often be quite easy to find, so don't assume that it's the end of the story.

h2ohno - Grey Court is perhaps not a good parallel with the academies. It has historically been one of the "good" schools and in a favoured catchment area, but had a major sudden downturn a few years back due to poor leadership and perhaps some level of complacency. Not too up on the details, but it was only a very short-term blip. It would therefore have been much easier to turn around than the decades of underachievement of the schools that preceded the academies.

Christ's is more interesting, and makes me think that the Council missed a trick when it converted the academies and should have take that opportunity to create a Catholic VA school out of one of them...

BayJay, I guess it's the nature of these threads but as said before the Archdiocese won't accept an alternative to a VA from m understanding. This will reduce funding considerably i.e. from the Archdiocese thus loading more burden onto both the local and centra taxpayer for more community/ inclusive places which are not reuired as there are 200 spare at the moment. As noted above an alternative school would also cause problems locally re the nearby academy.

If risc is more about ideology than addressing a deficit of community school places (200 spare) should nearly almost 1888 kids in LBR Catholic primary Schools really be used as ideological footballs?

BayJay, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee as I'm sure you know is a cross party group and it was not fair to say that 'they' were not happy with the data given previously.

Cllr Malcolm Eady, Lib Dem spokesperson for education, is on the Scrutiny Cttee, so he will get the chance to let us know what he makes of these forecasts on Monday. His own forecasts are here . (His) estimate is that by 2016 we will be 169 places short, if we assume just moderate improvement in our secondary schools. Most of the shortfall will be on the Middlesex side of the river (108 places): this is why the Clifden Road site is so important.

Seenbutnotheard: Correct - the minute says only that the Ctee asked for the report.

The issue in Richmond is quality of existing provision at the 3 state schools identfied in the Council paper. By defining the issue as anti faith schools RISC is leading everyone down a blind alley that doesn't make educational or financial sense for local people.
If we defined the problem in Richmond as variable state provision I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to ask a new VA Catholic school to support say the academy nearest in in terms of improving the educational offer to its children. This plus the money the church would put in would be addressing the issue (quality of provision) and serving the wider community. Why not? The reason I get annoyed with Bayjay for example is there is no movement in her position, no attempt to find a compromise that doesn't involve a faith school with no faith.

"the Overview and Scrutiny Committee as I'm sure you know is a cross party group and it was not fair to say that 'they' were not happy with the data given previously."

Seenbutnotheard, yes, I will concede that point. Bad semantics. However, I think it's fair to say that there was no data given previously, hence the committee asked for the report.

"there is no movement in her position"
Actually my preference would be for a community school, but as I appreciate the Council's reasons for not favouring one, I have moved towards the compromise of a Faith Academy. Unlike you, I don't think that a Catholic Faith Academy would be a "faith school with no faith". Christs CofE Secondary in Richmond has a proportion of open admissions, as do the many CofE primaries in the borough, and I'm sure they would be offended by that description.

Mir4 - it's a sad reality that a lot of practicing Catholics are only doing so in order to increase the schooling choices for their children. There is little point in taking offence at someone pointing this sorry fact out to you. Admitting that cynical Catholics exist does not in anyway diminish the true faith that others may hold.

Do any of the Church of England Primary Schools in Richmond have a 50% open admissions policy?
I honestly thought it was only 30%.

Actually, going by this it looks like it is only Arch Deacon Cambridge that have a 30% open admissions policy.

Sorry, St Stephen?s CE Junior also have Orleans as a feeder infant.

St Mary's must have significantly more than 30% open places as only 16 of its 90 places are foundation places.

St John the Baptist and St Stephen's (although that will have changed as it's now turning into a primary) give priority to children from their respective linked community infant schools. So very few places at all would therefore go to churchgoers at these schools.

I'm also fairly sure that a good number of places at St Mary's and St Peter's are open - at least they certainly used to be. I'm not sure how that can work looking at the criteria lists here though!

It does vary a bit from school to school which is in evidence here. Given the Church of England policy is to move towards more open places, there will almost certainly be a lot more movement in that direction in the coming years.

Christs looks set to move to 50:50 admissions when it expands. See Section 4.8.

Taken from BayJay's link...
"At present, 70 of the 120 places are designated as ?Foundation? for practising Christian children
and 50 as ?Open? for any other children, although in practice the
Foundation category has been slightly undersubscribed in recent years,
allowing more places for the wider community. If the school expanded
to accommodate 150 children per Year 7 intake, the likely intention
would be that the places would be split 75:75 between Foundation and
Open, but the possibility of a Catholic secondary school being
established in the borough could have the effect of the real split
becoming 50:100."

I did not realise that Christ's was undersubscibed for foundation places. That explains why it has been an option for some Catholic children in the locality, as well as the wider community.

I think that it would be safe to say that a Catholic VA school on the Clifden site would not be undersubcribed - there are more than enough practising Catholic children in borough to more than fill a Catholic Secondary school, even one twice the size of that proposed.

Mir4 - it's a sad reality that a lot of practicing Catholics are only doing so in order to increase the schooling choices for their children. There is little point in taking offence at someone pointing this sorry fact out to you. Admitting that cynical Catholics exist does not in anyway diminish the true faith that others may hold.

I am sorry Miss Muffett but I cannot let that go without comment. I have said that it is offensive and yet you repeat the offence. You are implying in your comment that a lot of practising catholics are only there for school places and that is a hugely offensive. As a practising catholic in a fab parish and having children in a Catholic school so in daily contact with other catholic parents I can def say that parents such as those you mentioned are in the minority NOT the majority. If that was the case there would be far more of our catholic children chosing local community primary schools linked to the most popular secondary schools wouldn't there?

Seenbutnotheard I hear you ! Thank you for your points about the make up of provision at Christs etc. like all catholics I totally support our Anglican community schools they do a great job! I am sorry to see that they do not have more children taking up the foundation spaces and hope that will change for them in the future. It does explain though why the percentage of foundation/ community spaces is different at this present time from some of our Catholic schools where demand has been huge for the foundation spaces. You are right in your predication that there would be a huge demand for places at a Catholic secondary school in the borough which would mean that a 50/50 academy would not serve the needs of the children at the 6 primary schools infact not even the catholic primary school in Twickenham let alone those in ther rest of the borough. It would also only provide inclusive places for those in twickenham town centre who already have more choice than others around the borough and would have a detrimental affect on twickenham academy.

MIR4 it is difficult for some people to understand that for Catholics the right school is not reduced to a simple choice of the school highest in the league table that week. Catholic schools are about forming Catholics - people didn't like that when I raised it earlier; actually the Vatican says Catholic schools should be about creating saints - that idea would blow people away. So Bayjay's idea that you can have a "faith" academy with "inclusive" admissions( ie Catholicity not part of the oversubscription criteria) and no Catholic leadership of the school is of course a nonsense to you and I. What Bayjay seems to want is an academic school, with good values (love, peace, respect etc) which I of course applaud but you and I know that is not just what a Catholic school should be about - that in a sense is the easy bit

Mir4, as a regular Catholic churchgoer who has sent their dc to one of the Richmond Catholic primaries, I can't honestly understand how you can make a statement like that.

I have not said anything of "majority" rather than "minority". I don't honestly know what proportion are cynical, and quite frankly it isn't my place to sit in judgement anyway. But I do know it happens. And I do know that if the Catholic options improve with a new Catholic Secondary there will be a lot more supposedly devout practicing Catholics around here. I'm sorry, but I don't like it. I want to be able to practice my faith without people assuming I'm only doing it to get my kids into a good school.

Mir 4, offensive it may be to you but I can assure you that both within my Catholic family and my circle of friends and neighbours not a single one chose Catholic schools for faith reasons - I wouldn't expect anyone be too vocal about this at the school gates. This has been a balanced and sensitive discussion on the whole admirably moderated by Bayjay and I hope it can continue this way without anyone taking offence at perfectly valid differing opinions.

Mir4, I am sorry you are offended but I absolutely stand by my statement. I used to attend a church attached to a primary school, and the exodus from the pews the moment school places were allocated had to be seen to be believed. I have a couple of friends whose children attend the local (Richmond) Catholic primary who are quite open that they were glad to use their own or their dp's Catholic background (not current beliefs) to get entry to that school.

We all know these people! They are not thin on the ground. And to point it out is not in any disrespectful to the many genuine Catholics who view a faith-based education as in the service of their faith, rather than seeing their 'faith' as passport to a better school. In fact, I'm relieved that my dd attends a community primary, and I now attend a church that is not linked to a school. I thought the church-school link was very unhealthy for both church life and for the local community.

And, by the way, I am not remotely upset. Neither am I anti-Catholic (which is also part of my cultural heritage, along with Judaism).