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!

The Teddington map is here - it's been decided on distance since 2005 anyway but excluding anyone not in a link school.

Since 2004 even. The consultation document suggests that you'd get 16 more from Richmond and 16 fewer from Kingston boroughs without the link policy.

"the popular humanist target of Christmas to be re-titled 'winterville" I do believe that you made that up. Are you you running out of arguments based on facts?

Consultation doc here

Thanks very much - very interesting. Seems to show that you can be a girl living almost next door to the Clifden site but still not be able to get into Waldegrave. I'd assumed you would be near enough there. Also that the 30 or so children living in central Kingston who come over to Teddington School won't be displaced first as they actually often live nearer by road than those that are currently scraping in from the Strawberry Hill/Fulwell area.

Do they actually publish the number of places that are filled as opposed to the number of offers made?

I get it BayJay, it can be anything as long as it is not a Catholic VA school.

As far as I can see, RISC will not be happy unless the end result is not a Catholic VA school.
I wonder how many respondents would need to be in support of the proposal for a Catholic VA school would be needed to make RISC feel that it was what the community wanted?

Gosh, I must be tired, my English is leaving a lot to be desired...

I wonder how many people would need to be in support of the proposal for a Catholic VA school (within the consultation) to make RISC feel that it was what the community wanted?

I don't know if I've seen that but I did see stats from last year which suggested that about 10% of places are offered as alternatives to any of the (up to six) preferences stated. Which is quite high.

Regarding North Kingston don't forget that Grey Court is drawing many from there now with several links formed recently and siblings following. And there is supposed to be a new school considered there too.

LP - try the data available through LBRT, DOE etc for most of the stats quoted. Here's another one re inclusivity - of 784,000 pupils educated in maintained Catholic schools and colleges in 2010 30% were non Catholic. (CESEW 2010 Census Data for Schools and Colleges September 2011 and Ofsted)

seenbutnothead - I am a very pragmatic person and I am not really hearing any answers from the VA school lobby to the question of where all these non-Catholic children in local primary schools in the Fulwell/Twickenham area near the Clifden site are going to go to school in three - five years time once all these bulge classes in non-Catholic local primary schools work their way through to Year 6, given that all the community/academy secondary schools are almost full already. I will need to be convinced that there is a long-term solution to that major issue before I am convinced that it is sensible for the Council to dispose of the only viable site for a secondary school in the Borough that has come up for many years. I certainly don't believe that Catholics should be disadvantaged through the linked schools system but, so far as i can see, that only affects a small minority of Catholic children - otherwise Catholics have the choice of a local community school like everyone else and many of them also have a choice of at least one Catholic school relatively nearby, whereas the majority of us have no choice of local secondary school at all.

?Winterval was a season of public events in Birmingham organised by Birmingham City Council in each of two consecutive winters - 19978 and 1998/9 . . The intention was to encourage people into the newly rejuvenated town centre, with secular and religious events marking religious and other occasions during the relevant period. The name "Winterval" has since become used in the UK as shorthand for what are presented as attempts to "rebrand" Christmas so as not to exclude non-Christians.

. . Birmingham City Council did not use the name "Winterval" after the 1998?9 season, but it persists as shorthand for any secular replacement for Christmas, used both by supporters and opponents of the traditional Christmas; it is also cited as a cautionary tale or urban legend by those who regard allegations of the existence of a "war on Christmas" as overblown . . On 8 November 2011 The Daily Mail issued an apology for using the term 'Winterval' in a article it ran on 26 September 2011, stating:

Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events, both religious and secular, which took place in Birmingham in 1997 and 1998. We are happy to make clear that Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas.? wikipedia

seenbutnotheard - re your retorical question 'I wonder how many people would need to be in support of the proposal for a Catholic VA school (within the consultation) to make RISC feel that it was what the community wanted?' risc seems more of an ideological campaign than a purely democratic one
in its nature -
why didn't risc commence when the council pledged to create
a Catholic Secondary before the 2010 May elections?

Richmond Inclusive Schools campaign was set up to campaign for an inclusive school. On what basis do you think they should be happy that the school will be exclusively for a minority of the boroughs children? They as far as I am aware are not some kind of democratic polling group - they were specifically created to campaign for inclusive schools. I'm baffled about why you think they would shift their position on this if 20% or 40% or 60% of people don't agree or agree with them. Will you change your view on Catholic schools if 75% of borough residents disagree with you?

hampton - yes it is an ideological campaign. The ideology being "inclusive schools" - shame on them

I don't know when RISC started but I know that I was only aware during the election that the conservatives had pledged to consider the desire for a catholic school alongside a new inclusive secondary (I admit that I might have been fooled by the rhetoric about two schools being needed which ultimate they meant the "equivalent" of two schools). It was not billed as a priority for a catholic school and fingers crossed that there are enough spaces and enough improvement in the existing schools for the rest of us. Wasn't quite the way they positioned it when campaigning.

They also weren't very forthcoming about Lord True's catholic connections.

My understanding is that the council are not denying that there may be a need for another community school in 5 years time, but that it is not needed now and that to open one would be counter-productive for the Academy schools that are trying hard to improve.
A school on the Clifden site then has the effect of offering a further choice to those residents already in the catchment area for Orleans (or Waldegrave) and diminishing the chances for those who will continue to have only an Academy as an option (as the assumption is that this will further slow down any improvement)

A Catholic VA school will offer places for children accross the borough - they will just happen to be Catholic children, rather than those just living in the centre of Twickenham.

Kewcumber, maybe I should be more specific - what would it take to persuade you that the council's consultation had shown that the community wanted a Catholic VA school?

Given that there are enough Catholic children within the borough to more than fill a school, but there are only 10%-14% (dependent on which stats you choose to believe) would there have to be a majority? Would this even be possible (unless there are few respondents from those against a Catholic VA school)

As for my position, I don't necessarily think that it can be 'first past the post' as how could this ever get decisions made that support minorities? But, if there was clear apathy on the part of the Catholic population (and others that have stated that they support the proposal) then I would have to conceede that.

I am not sure how any one on either side of the arguement can ever feel that the consultation was fair (if they do not get 'their way') so this is a genuine question, rather than trying to point score.

My understanding from the statistics I've seen is that places in the Twickenham area, in fact the entire Middx side of the Borough, will run out in a couple of years time before the enormous wave of bulge classes even hits secondary school application age. If the Linked Schools system is abolished there may well be more children in Teddington/Twickenham applying to state schools who currently go private or go to non-linked schools and some of them will get in excluding other local children who might have got in before eg. I have a friend with a 7 year old child at Vineyard School in Richmond which has no current links. They live really near Orleans Park and would send their child there - many other families with children in the streets near Richmond Bridge have had to send their children over to Vineyard as there as there has been a shortage of primary school places in East Twickenham and they have not been able to apply to Orleans Park before but as soon as the linked system goes they will. The idea that there are enough places for five more years only works if a lot of children from the Middlesex side of the Borough are made to go to Richmond Park Academy rather than allowing them to have a local school at Clifden. Even then five years isn't very long when there is no other site in the offing that we are being told about. Maybe the Council is relying on being able to force Richmond College to shut down and grab their site if it manages to build sixth forms in every school (seems a bit unlikely in current financial climate).

Seenbutnotheard, at the council meeting I think it was Councillor Samuel who made it very clear that a consultation wouldn't be a numbers game in terms of popularity because obviously that wouldn't be fair against a minority. That's a good point.

But they just haven't offered any alternatives or supplementary plan yet. A lot of the support for RISC campaign is coming from pent-up frustration with the council (and previous councils) on school provision in general. Choices are so patchy. The link system is not working. And now suddenly we're going to have academies and even less certainty. The council has been active on the Catholic school but seemingly unconcerned on other issues. Maybe we'll see the end of the link system but they will have to wake up. There could be as many as 45% in the private sector (certainly nearly a third). And the fact that 10% of offers are not being based on any preference at all is really high if you compare it with other outer London schools. See the last page of that link - Catholics are represented in the figure of 21.9% with an offer from another LA - which does need to be taken into account - but the 10.2% of 'alternative offers' from Richmond LA (i.e. the same figure as those not offered anything on their llist of preferences) is the highest of that group, and no doubt explains the vacancies they refer to. Maybe some people are so unrealistic that they only want selective grammar schools or nothing, but you'd expect to see a similar figure in other suburban London areas. And perhaps they've got the capacity in the wrong sort of schools in the wrong areas and should be addressing it.

I cross-posted with you LottieProsser but same sort of thinking.

I found the Orleans Park admissions map

They haven't made these easy to find (or the web addresses easy to guess) have they?

Thanks Cat2405: one can see the streets adjacent to the bridge that sent no children to Orleans because they were at the Vineyard school. Scrapping the links will enable children in these streets to apply for Orleans and get in, crowding out others who live in West Twickenham.

The competition for places is already intense: in 2010 there were nearly 6 applications for each of the 132 non-sib non-SEN places. Enough pupils were turned away to fill a 5-form-of-entry community school on the Clifden site [assuming no sibs and no SEN] four times over - and still have 15 left over.

But then the nearest school for East Twickenham is Orleans Park or Christ's. Why aren't there more pupils from St Mary's or St Stephen's choosing Christ's, as they are more likely to get in as they can apply for the foundation places?

St Stephen's shool destinations - no places at Christ's yet it's a Church of England school and Christ's isn't far away. In fact, two places taken at Catholic schools.

muminlondon: the answer is that they have no difficulty getting into Orleans because of the link; St Stephen's itself, though it is a church school, takes virtually all its pupils from Orleans Infants and functions as a community school. 'Regular attendance at St Stephen?s church' is one of its criteria, after attendance at Orleans Infants.

Both schools are being converted to become straight through primary schools from 2012 so this will change. The two schools will need to compete instead of co-operating closely as now. Orleans has the advantage that it is on a much better site, down a quiet cul de sac instead of on the main A316 road.