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!

muminlondon - I was neither being intolerant nor provocative. I was responding to littlemissmuppet's earlier post and rather agreeing with her: that it would be a reasonable conclusion that someone who is a practising Catholic might be different in some ways from the population who was not Catholic. Littlemissmuppet thinks that these differences - she used the words drive and family - and seems to be of the view that these should not be the basis for selection whereas I think there are not, in her words, "a happy side effect" but perhaps integral to practising Catholics lives.

Now back to what the other options might be - it's interesting that there seems to be more anti faith school debate than positive ideas around what a new community school would look like and who/how this would be funded.

I'm getting fed up with the council. They turned down crossrail which would have revolutionised transport in our borough (esp the southern part where we are), they have stopped BT rolling out the fibre round here because they have refused them planning permission for the little boxes the fibre goes in (fgs - and now BT say they do not know whether they will do it here because of the council issues) and now I hear parts of the Teddington Health Centre (where the walk in clinic is) are closing (the blood tests and gp service during the day) - I know that's the health authority not the council but still grrrr.

I have totally lost faith in this council and their representation of the whole borough. I'm starting to think it wouldn't be a bad idea if the north and south parts were split because my feeling is that they are far more interested in the north part which is where the stronger votes for the Tories came in. I have no idea what decision they will make but I'm sure it won't be one that is to the benefit of the majority of people in the borough!

The most up-to-date (Sept 2011) figures of FSM entitlement, EAL, SEN etc for individual borough schools are here in the Quindrat Needs Analysis.

Very interesting data.

My point to Florist would be that when families are bound together by a sense of community it can inspire people to look out for each other, take pride in a school, volunteer, etc. I wouldn't dispute that they are characteristics of a Catholic community too - but it is not unique to Catholics or other faith communities. In many of the outstanding primary schools in Richmond there is a special sense of community and volunteer spirit despite a diverse intake.

muminlondon - excellent. I am pleased that there is that community in some of your schools. Long may it continue.

So what sort of (non Catholic) school would you like to see on the site

"it's interesting that there seems to be more anti faith school debate than positive ideas around what a new community school would look like" are you serious! Really? The "anti fatith school" debate is becasue the council is proposing to give the only currently viable site for a school to the catholic church and some of us beleive that there should be more consultation about what is needed in the way of secondary schooling in Richmond borough.

So the immediate issue is to persuade the council to consult properly so that we can start looking at the needs of the boroughs children and put an appropriate school in an appropriate place.

Why on earth would you be interested in half thought through ideas about an alternative school? I would like to see a great more deal of research personally before setting out any ideas to be shot down by dis-interested bystanders.

totally bemused by the idea that catholic schools have the monopoly on family and community spirit.

At our school fair I feel safe letting DS wander around on his own because its predominantly for the children at the school and virtually every teacher knows virtually every pupil at the school. We get some excellent results despite having some of the highest percentages of children with SEN and free school meals and English as a second language. Interestingly the catholic schools in our quindrat have the lowest number of pupils with SEN (ie none between them, not one) and the lowest percentage of pupils receiving free school meals. And someone earlier in the thread who was arguing for a Catholic secondary on the basis that it promotes inclusivity ! I have seen some arguments that I have some sympathy with but that one rather devalued the whole idea to me.

Florist, as you're not local, do you mind me asking what your interest is in this debate? Do you have some other connection, e.g. via the Diocese? Or do you just have a general interest in the subject of Catholic schools? Please don't feel obliged to answer, it's just that this is a debate with a lot of local context. If someone else joined in arguing the pro-inclusive case from a non-local standpoint I'd be asking them the same question (and its easy to see that if many non-local people joined in then the debate could rapidly lose focus).

And as others have pointed out, the presence of the link school system supported the case for a VA school. Catholics felt excluded from local schools in most areas because of that system. But other local children without a link are also excluded and their numbers are equally significant. Now there is an opportunity to change the system and choices will shift, including from the private sector.

Whilst I don't think for one minute that Catholics have a monopoly on community and family spirit, the church is still a good way of bringing such things about.

Having said that, in our borough, most of the Catholic primary schools are smaller than the community schools. It is much easier to be community spirited in a one form entry school where everyone will quickly know each other than in a four form entry one!

muminlondon whilst I do agree that the link school system has supported the case for the VA school, I can assure you that the demands for a VA school were around long before links ever caused a problem. It really isn't very long since the now well regarded secondaries weren't so oversubscribed that a link was needed. In fact, I suspect the demands for a VA school started almost as soon as the Catholic church pulled out of Christ's...

Both very good points LittleMrsMuppet. The abolition of the link school policy doesn't mean that there is no case for a Catholic VA school. But the arguments put forward to Michael Gove are already out of date. And the Council cannot justify retaining the link school system then backing up the Catholic school decision using that argument. Until we know how the new admissions criteria may influence choice it is also hard for them to use spare capacity at the academies as justification to deny a second community school or places in an inclusive school based on the status quo.

The Quindrat Needs Analysis reports that the 2011 FSM rates for the borough?s secondary schools range from 33 % for Richmond Park Academy and 25 % for Twickenham Academy to 9 % for Teddington and Waldegrave. As I posted earlier, the RC primary schools average 6 %, so a secondary school taking pupils from them only will be even more exclusive of the poor than Teddington and Waldegrave are.

Abolishing the linked school system will makes these schools and Orleans even more socially exclusive. See: Abolishing the ?linked schools? system: who gains? who loses? A forecast for Orleans Park.

No Chris, there is a big flaw in that argument. At present there is 45% of Richmond resident pupils in private schools. That's six times the national average. The borough average rate of drop-out from state to private from Y7 onwards is about 20%. Still too high. But you analyse the school destinations between Richmond and Twickenh sides of the river and you will find scandalously high rates of flight to the private sector on the Ruchmond side. How can you build two new primary schools and not give them a school to transfer to? Grey Court is now hardly an option because it is linked to Kingston schools.

If Kingston get funding for their new North Kingston school it would open Grey Court up to children in Richmond, of course. Fingers crossed they get it.

Chris the following point in your link concerns me -

"4. St Stephens may be seriously affected. It has had problems sustaining admission numbers. One of its selling points is the link to OPS"

I don't know this school, but why does it have problems sustaining admissions numbers? Hopefully I'm misinterpreting the statement, but it reads to me like parents aren't too impressed with it and would move to other schools if it weren't for the OPS link. Seems a strange argument to me.

Suggestion by some that catholic schools are more inclusive is adding further insult to injury. I have not come across anyone from a muslim, sikh or other minority group attend catholic school. As I have mentioned in my previous posts a catholic va school will further hamper education and integration of other religious groups.

Hampton is almost full and Twickenham academy is likely to get full in 2013 especially if places are reduced to introduce 6th form. So what options are left for us - only state places likely to be left in 2013 will be in RPA and its a difficult commute from Whitton. Hence the clifden road school needs to be a community school .

The council keeps on changing its story of when a new community school is needed and there is no proper needs/ impact analysis. The latest story is being manipulated to show that new school is not needed till 2015. Reality is that they have no more sites and money left! We have been let down on a no of fronts - variable quality in secondary schools, 60 primary kids denied spaces this year etc. To make matters worse, its a shame that the current controversy continues to be poorly and arrogantly handled.

Just following up on a post by Priviet yesterday (Sat 19-Nov-11 13:30:31). I did some analysis on the 2011 school census data to see how many of the 150 local authorities in England don't have an RC Secondary School. There are 20 in total, so roughly about 1 in 8. Here is the full list:

Barnsley
Bracknell Forest
Bromley
Cambridgeshire
Central Bedfordshire
Cornwall
Devon
Dorset
East Riding of Yorkshire
North East Lincolnshire
North Somerset
Poole
Richmond upon Thames
Rutland
Shropshire
Somerset
South Gloucestershire
West Berkshire
Windsor and Maidenhead
Wokingham

Continuing on from my previous post, as there are 33 Local Authorities in London, you might expect 4 of them (rather than 2) not to have a Catholic Secondary School if London was inline with the national picture.

LittleMrsMuppet: Two comments: St Stephen?s is a junior school at present linked to Orleans Infants school; affluent families start their kids at OI and then put them into a private prep school instead of StS to prepare them for Common Entrance.

StS is next to the very busy A316 Chertsey Road and therefore somewhat dirty and polluted. OI is a very pleasant site at the end of a quiet cul de sac. Both schools will become ?all-through? junior schools next autumn. Once the link goes, as I think it will, they will be competing with the Vineyard school on Richmond Hill, a much better environment than StS; it already takes many kids from East Twickenham but lacks a link at present.

St Stephen's pupils presumably also have a chance to apply for Christ's foundation places. You can't use diversity arguments to prioritise Hounslow residents over Twickenham ones who happen to have preferred a non-faith primary school. And you can't deny Catholics a school and still justify the link system either. Abolishing it is not going to solve everyone's problems but it will be more logical than leaving it in place when everything around has changed.

How many authorities have a link system with 0% allocation on distance?

And if you want to social engineer based on averages house price per area you will have to means test every family to see if they are living in a flat or one of those big houses in Twickenham that even have gardens.

Muminlondon: I do not know what other authorities do re links - my impressions is that few or no other authorities use links at all. It is true that there is no quota based on distance only; the applicants from the linked schools are allocated places by distance; the numbers applying from the link schools are now so large that those most distant are failing to get in, adding to the general discontent. A move to distance only will encourage the creation of a small catchment area packed with school age families who will hog all the places and exclude everyone else.

No-one is proposing social engineering so I?m wondering why you have mentioned it.

"A move to distance only will encourage the creation of a small catchment area packed with school age families "

Sounds like a thriving local school community to me.

If there are a) enough schools of sufficient quality and b) appropriate affordable housing policies, then that effect should be minimised. The environmental benefits of children going to their nearest local school are obvious.

The catchment area might change and shrink within tbe borough boundaries but there will be a good proportion of St Stephen's children qualifying on distance. So actually it win't make so much difference except be more understandable. It's already based on distance but according to choices made by parents long ago and no new links have a chance. Why should St Stephen's pupils - or Hounslow linked primary pupils - have a greater entitlement than those living practically next to the school who transferred to a different primary/junior school at 4 or 7? Or over pupils moving into the area after year 3? Why can't some Trafalgar/Stanley pupils have the chance of applying to their first or second nearest school? How complicated will it get if Teddington Academy changes its criteria and selects 10% on some specialism?

our headmaster can't think of a single other london borough hat has a link system like Richmonds. I gather it was brought in to reduce to attendance of non-borough childrne at borough secondaries as (of course we are such a thin borough that many non richmond children are closer to richmond secondaries than their own) but bizarrely a significant number of schools are without a link so its detrimental to them.

littlemiss muppett - I can only speak about the catholic primaries on our side of the borough and they are none of them small. We are a single calss intake and the community spirit at the school is very string and the majority of people live less than 800 metres from the school. Its oversubsrcibed every year - not because it has the best academic results locally but because its a nice school with a caring school community. We even have some catholic children here

DS's class also has muslim, hindu, shinto, christians and humanists (just that I know of)