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!

Cat2405: This the article on the BBC website. It relates to the Archdiocese of Southwark, which covers the southern part of LBRuT.

"So please can we stop the regular belittling"
Mir4, I don't think there has been very much of that sort of thing. This conversation has been running since February, and you've pretty much listed the extent of it in that last post. Things have got a little heated at times (and, looking back at some of your early posts, I think there has been some belittling on both sides), but its been mostly respectful. We're all intelligent adults here (I hope) and anyone who does overstep the mark should know that they're not doing their argument any favours.

Florist and priviet, my last comment about the interaction with other cultures/faiths etc wasn't directed only at Catholic schools. The same applies to the Jewish and Muslim schools (which we don't have here in LBRUT but other London boroughs do).

And yes, I'd also be opposed to any new schools opening up that only catered for a single sex.

I am sure people would be outraged if a generous donation was given by a Chinese group (for example) to the council to open a school, but then they gave priority to Chinese children to attend over and above any other ethnic origin. Especially if the Council still had to pay a significant proportion of the running costs.

Mir4, I don't think there has been very much of that sort of thing. This conversation has been running since February, and you've pretty much listed the extent of it in that last post. Things have got a little heated at times (and, looking back at some of your early posts, I think there has been some belittling on both sides), but its been mostly respectful. We're all intelligent adults here (I hope) and anyone who does overstep the mark should know that they're not doing their argument any favours.

I think Bayjay people can read back and draw their own conclusions. I know that I have never knowingly belittled anyones faith and of course I apologise unreservedly if anyone has felt that from what I have said on here.

No it doesn't help the debate so let us move on without it please, with no more diversions from the real discussions here.

However in looking back at my posts which started on roughly page 10 I think readers may well find that I have repeatedly asked the same questions that have not been satisfactoraly answered :-

1)How would a new community/academy school not detrimentaly affect two schools (particularly Twickenham academy)?
How is that fair on the children who already go there and for those children who have no other choice available to them?
2) How would it be for the good of the rest of the borough when the majority of the boroughs children will have no access to it ?
3)How is it a good use of tax payers money to pay for a new school before it is needed when it will be to the detriment of the considerable money they have invested in the academies to make them schools of first choice?
4)What is the justification for building a school which effectively gives one area a 4th choice and denies other children a choice to continue their education in their own borough?

Bay Jay you have explained to me very well that your current debate is on inclusive 50/50 admissions. My position is that this school is being created to give continuity of education and to meet the needs of these 6 schools of children and that must be done first. The policy of the church has been made clear here by others , it is not denying inclusive spaces it is saying that the needs of the children the school is being provided for need to be met first before those places are realeased.
There is no guarantess that the link system will go. Even if it does, it will mean that by using the admission code you suggest only Twickenham children will access this school. This defeats the whole purpose of the school as it is intended to be a borough VA school, uniting 6 schools from across the borough 5 of whom currently have no link system in place. Without its VA status there would sadly still be large numbers of Catholic children having to go out of borough whilst their parents continue to pay for other children to be educated in their place.

I like the idea of a Science & Engineering Academy so much I've started a Facebook page to gather support. Follow this link.

Notice it doesn't mention a site. I'm not setting this up in direct competition to the Catholic Church!

Suzihaha I can not understand how you can compare the Chinese people to the Catholic faith!!
Catholicism is the second largest faith in this country behind the Church of England, both of them following Christianity, which has been this country's religion for centuries!! Also, in the Richmond borough there are 6 Catholic primary schools, whose children have no continuity of their education within their own borough; Whereas practically every other borough in the UK provides this secondary education for all the children who attend the many many Catholic primaries in this country! Why do you feel it is ok for the Richmond borough to discriminate against these children, where no other borough in the UK (apart from maybe one other) does?? !
(unbelievable comparison!!)

"Whereas practically every other borough in the UK provides this secondary education"

priviet, do you have figures to back that statement up? I know that RISC have looked at the numbers for London (it was them who pointed out that Richmond wasn't the only London Borough not to have one, as was originally claimed). However I haven't seen any national figures. I know that Cornwall has only recently got the go-ahead for its first state funded Catholic Secondary school, and that is going to be a Free School, so will have at least 50:50 admissions.

priviet, is your strong objection to Suzihaha's comparison due to the relative numbers of Catholics versus Chinese people? To me it sounded like she just plucked that example out of the air to illustrate her point. She could have just as easily made the same point using the example of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority families, which at 12%, comprise a similar precentage of the LBRuT population to Catholics.

1)How would a new community/academy school not detrimentaly affect two schools (particularly Twickenham academy)?
How is that fair on the children who already go there and for those children who have no other choice available to them?

It is my belief that a new community or academy school need not harm the recovery of the existing academies. As I have stated repeatedly, there are more than enough pupils in the local primary schools to fill a couple more community secondary schools if only they can be persuaded to remain in the borough or the State sector. Whilst I accept improving the quality of the intake can improve a school, I believe that to be a very complacent solution. It should not be seen as an alternative to providing good leadership, management and teaching. There are some fantastic schools elsewhere that are able to provide an excellent education despite having very socially deprived intakes. The academies therefore need to improve on their own merits; simply taking away any competition will not help them with this.

Further to this, perhaps you could answer the three following questions for me?

• "What evidence do you have that a new community/academy school would be detrimental to Hampton & Twickenham academies?"
• "Would a new Catholic VA school be detrimental to Hampton & Twickenham academies"
• "How will a new Catholic VA school not detrimentally affect St Paul's, Sunbury?"

2) How would it be for the good of the rest of the borough when the majority of the boroughs children will have no access to it ?
4)What is the justification for building a school which effectively gives one area a 4th choice and denies other children a choice to continue their education in their own borough?

I will answer both these questions together.
True. There will be no perceivable benefit for those much further out in the Borough. But the same argument could have been given when the Council decided to build Marshgate and Kew Riverside primaries a few years' back. The Clifden site has come up, where it is, however. I would certainly be receptive to hearing arguments that assert that the need is greater on the Surrey side of the Borough, for example, and maybe funds should be diverted there instead. However, we are currently debating this site and what its future should be. I do think that it is disingenuous to imply that people in Twickenham will have four choices of schools. The nature of community schools is that unless they are all undersubscribed or you are fortunate enough to live on a catchment boundary, there is only one choice of school as the oversubscription criteria is distance. Of course, people can still move into the catchment of their chosen secondary if need be - but the same could be said for Catholics worried about their dc's long journey to school. Why don't you move to Hounslow, for example?
But a new community school in central Twickenham could still benefit people living out of its catchment, as it could presumably free up places at Waldegrave and Orleans. This would have the effect of pushing out the catchments of these two schools. (Of course, this might not happen to any great extent as it is possible that all that would happen is that more families choose to stay in State secondary education in the area.)

As far as denying choice "in their own borough" to Catholic children, a simple solution here is to remove the link system. Speaking from my own conversations with Catholics, the vast majority consider a good quality school to be paramount. Although they would prefer a Catholic option, it is not a prerequisite as they have sufficient confidence in their ability to instill a Catholic ethos in their child at home and within their parish. I do not think it unreasonable for the few that consider the school being Catholic to be the priority to have to cross the borough boundary, as they have made the choice to put church before locality.

3)How is it a good use of tax payers money to pay for a new school before it is needed when it will be to the detriment of the considerable money they have invested in the academies to make them schools of first choice?
I have already made the case for why it need not be to the detriment of the academies. However, if your concern is only about the use of taxpayers' money, then perhaps one could argue that it would be cheaper not to offer choice to anyone and force all children into their local Secondary irrespective of its ethos. The cheapest solution is no new secondary school at all. (In saying that, I am not advocating that it is necessarily the best solution.)

On a slightly different note, I came across an an article by Fr Ashley Beck in The Tablet here, which I thought I'd share.

His position is one that I can connect to and have a lot of sympathy with. The church needs willing volunteers, and if school admissions spur people on to help out in their community then that's good, isn't it? Yes, I get that, It totally do. Where it breaks down, for me anyway, is that he thinks that this sort of system doesn't discriminate against the poorer/more vulnerable in society. I think that's wishful thinking, sadly. Sure, you don't need to be rich or middle-class to get involved in your church, but you do need to have some drive about you. And such parents, even if they are working class, are not going to be the ones bringing up the disaffected children that are so much harder to educate. Besides, my own experience has evidenced a considerably less socially diverse intake at the local Catholic school than at the local community school.

I also found the following paragraph particularly interesting -
"This policy would appear to support less popular Catholic schools by forcing committed Catholic families to consider them if more popular schools further away were no longer available. But it is folly. It is a very long time since Catholic parents have been susceptible to this sort of coercion, if they think a local Catholic school is no good, they will not look at it and will leave the Catholic sector. The way to improve a less popular school is to look at its character and improve its leadership, not attempt to tinker with its intake."

Littlemissmupper your assumption is wrong. Catholic schools in England and Wales have broadly the same % of kids on free school meals and with SEN and slightly more ethnic minorities in % than non Catholic maintained schools.

The trouble is - as I tried to indicate in reply to Bayjay's suggestion of a 10% intake to his Science and Engineering non faith academy based on interest in science/enginnering is difficult to achieve under the law/admissions code hence all state schools end up looking the same. How about if the Catholic VA school took on the Science/Engineering specialism and partnered with NPL in this.

bayjay of course not specifically that it was about the Chinese...it was just a ridiculous comparison! ...and regarding your comment that she could have easily said "black, Asian and ethnic minorities" ,that would be silly too!....do you not think they can be Catholic too? Please come to our church one Sunday to see for yourself!!

I think LittleMrsMuppet made some very important points there. I would add a couple more.

There is no guarantees that the link system will go. Even if it does, it will mean that by using the admission code you suggest only Twickenham children will access this school.

If the link system does not go, I feel certain that the opposition to the Catholic VA school will harden in those primary schools without a link. The system is out of date and anachronistic to anyone living on the Richmond side of the river. If the link system is an argument for a Catholic VA school, and is preserved on account of opposition by pupils predominantly in linked Church of England schools, then Marshgate, Vineyard, Kew Riverside and even Sheen Mount (their link would have been lost if they hadn't been in same local electoral ward as Shene) - 210 pupils - will need to have a community school built just for them.

An inclusive Catholic school with set proportion of foundation places would take those pupils from a much wider area than the open places. So it wouldn't just be Twickenham pupils. It could also be those Catholics taking the train from Barnes who didn't qualify for the Oratory and didn't fancy a single sex school.

muminlondon - if there was a VA catholic school with a % of places to which the oversubscription criteria didn't apply to would local taxpayers fund the refurbishment costs in that same proportion.

If yes, that would go some way to making it a practical proposal - as opposed to the wishful thinking that underpins many of the posts.

florist, I am afraid to tell you that you that I am correct in respect to Catholic schools in LBRuT. The difference in the free school meal indicator between Catholic primaries and non-Catholic ones here is quite shocking. I know that BayJay (or someone else) has given the exact figures earlier on in this thread or the other one, but don't have them to hand at the moment. I shall try to dig them out and restate them though.

Perhaps, as a non-local you are finding it hard to understand the specifically local nature of this debate?

"as I tried to indicate in reply to Bayjay's suggestion of a 10% intake to his Science and Engineering non faith academy based on interest in science/enginnering is difficult to achieve"

Florist, I'm a "her" not a "his".
Secondly, the entrance policy to my hypothetical Scie&Eng Academy was the product of 30 seconds' thought, so don't beat me up over it too much.
It could have 100% distance based admissions. If the Sci&Eng ethos is strong enough, then it would attract first-choice preferences from families who valued that ethos, and that should be enough to sustain it.

"all state schools end up looking the same."
I disagree.

"How about if the Catholic VA school took on the Science/Engineering specialism and partnered with NPL in this."
Then I'd be madder than ever if my kids couldn't go there.

"if there was a VA catholic school with a % of places to which the oversubscription criteria didn't apply to would local taxpayers fund the refurbishment costs in that same proportion"

I'm sure they would welcome the opportunity to do that, provided those who couldn't afford to do so weren't barred from applying to the school.

littlemissmuppet - you say that if you are a Catholic you might have more drive about you, inc working class catholics with more drive and stable families. If you are correct - and I do suspect if someone is a practising catholic they will be different from the general population - then of course the intake will be different; they will be Catholic and believing in things like God; marriage as a sacrament etc. It is not selecting on the basis of stable families, drive etc but rather on the basis of Catholicism.

Bayjay - in my rush I hope I didn't imply people had to pay but if your second best option of a Faith based school with 50% places open to people not of that faith do you think the Council would (not should) find the money to meet 50% of the refurb costs.

"do you think the Council would (not should) find the money to meet 50% of the refurb costs"

Florist, the church is only required to contribute 10% of the capital costs of VA schools, so the council would be contributing 90% anyway.

If the school is a Catholic Academy then an entirely different funding model applies.

I do suspect if someone is a practising catholic they will be different from the general population

You are being provocative or intolerant if you really believe it.

I was referring to the drive that would make a person volunteer to help out at their local church in order to increase their child's chances of selection into an oversubscribed school.

However, you are quite right that just being a practicing Catholic and embracing the church's values can mean that the intake will not be the same as that of the general population.

That can of course be seen as positive. Having your child surrounded by children from families who hold "good" values must surely help in their academic as well as spiritual education. Catholics can accept this as a happy side effect. However, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. My Christian faith is built on the belief that I should put the needs of others before my own. I cannot support a system that ends up excluding the most needy and vulnerable (ie children who are not from stable homes) however unintentional this consequence might have been.

[[http://www.richmond.gov.uk/richmond_upon_thames_admissions_forum_annual_report_2008.pdf
The LBRuT Admissions Forum Annual Report 2008 ]]said that the free school meals rate averaged 9 % across the borough (range 2 % - The Queen?s CE - 29 % Buckingham; 5 others were above 20%); the RC schools averaged 6 % (range 2 % - 9 %). The national average is 16 %; the Outer London average is 18 %.

Everyone, you can get school-level census information for 2011 here.

I've downloaded it and done a bit of analysis (which I'd copy here if Mumsnet would allow files to be uploaded). These are the Free School Meals stats for LBRuT:

Community Primaries: 12%
CofE Primaries: 9%
Catholic Primaries: 4%

My post above was for Primaries only. The 2008 FSM rate for our secondary school averaged 15 % [range 10 % Waldegrave and Teddington, 11 % Orleans - 28 % Shene]; the national and Outer London averages are 13 % and 17 %.

FYI - Sheen is Richmod Park Academy (for those who are either not local or on;t know of the change)

Re "playing the catholic joker card" - this was not intended as an insult but perhaps shows my age as those of us who grew up with "its a knockout" will ofte talk about "playing the joker card" and it refers to getting extra points for something Haven't known anyone take offence at it before! However if you find the phrase offensive I'll try to avoid it on this thread.