New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2

[BayJay]

I'm starting this new thread because the other one of the same name has filled up.

Just watched the notice of motion. Lord True seems to point all responsibility on Nick Whitfield. It seems he is stiching him up badly! I hope he expresses his professional opinion to the public soon and gets out of this polictical mess he had been dragged into .

Its worth pointing out that Cllr Paul Hodgins does refer to some of the RISC analysis in his speech, when he talks about the inflow of children from the private sector as the Academies improve. They have accepted that point, but say that they have it covered.

It does seem that Lord True and friends are digging a bigger and bigger hole for themselves to fall into. My experience (in Teddington area) is that an unscientific sample of parents do want there to be sixth forms in schools (though noone understands how they can fit in anymore buildings at Teddington school) and don't want secondary schools to get any bigger (Teddington school is already the largest in the borough) and do support removing the linked schools policy so the Tories have got the public mood right on those things. But they don't seem to care about the consequence which will be no places for many of the children who used to come to Teddington School from large linked primary schools like Stanley and Trafalgar (four and three forms of entry). The Clifden site would be an ideal location for a community school to take these children and others. There seems to be no plan from the Tories as to where they are going to go instead, other than Twickenham Academy, which will be full very soon and geographically serves the Whitton side of Twickenham not the Teddington side, Richmond Park Academy for the next couple of years after that (which is a long way to make children travel when they are not positively choosing that school) and then nothing in prospect at all..... I also agree with whoever said that if Twickenham Academy is successful, which seems likely, parents will be moving in from other parts of London to Whitton- they won't care about its past reputation as it is in effect a new school after 5 years.

^Lord True seems to point all responsibility on Nick Whitfield. It seems he is stiching him up badly! I hope he expresses his professional opinion to the public soon and gets out of this polictical mess he had been dragged into .
^
Goodness me Akhan!!! I think Nick Whitfield is a grown up as well as a professional! Has it not occured to you that he is backing the councils proposals because he has the facts and figures to support them?

.The Director of education and his department after all are the ones who have all of the up to date figures, statistics, daily updates from every school in the borough etc etc not RISC and not Councilor Eady! These up to date figures include the fact that we have 209 empty , unfilled spaces in our secondary schools in this borough. That we have only 68% of our secondary schools filled with richmond borough students (with a percentage of the out of borough places only being taken in the absence of applications from LBRUT students.) Their figures would also include the 1,888 children currently in our Catholic schools who have no continuity of education available to them in their own borough for secondary education when they reach Yr7!

I'm afraid suggesting that Nick Whitfield is somehow concealing the truth, being hearded along by the council against his better judgement is nothing short of scare mongering. Why on earth would he do this when he is not a paid employee of the Conservative majority party but an independent local government officer?

But they don't seem to care about the consequence which will be no places for many of the children who used to come to Teddington School from large linked primary schools like Stanley and Trafalgar

Lottie it is my understanding (unless I am mistaken) that they do not intend to decrease secondary places to accomadate 6th form places at any schools other than the academies (who already have a surplus of unfilled spaces). I think that with Teddington and the other local schools the council have budgeted for building work to expand the schools to accomadate 6th forms.

"The Director of education and his department after all are the ones who have all of the up to date figures, statistics, daily updates from every school in the borough etc etc not RISC and not Councilor Eady! "
Mir4, this is 2012. We all have equal access to the same data.

I'm afraid suggesting that Nick Whitfield is somehow concealing the truth, being hearded along by the council against his better judgement is nothing short of scare mongering.
Nobody is suggesting that, and if you have interpreted the discussion that way I suggest you go back and read a little more carefully. Nick Whitfield is behaving very professionally. He and his team have produced a forecast. Others have pointed out the risks in the forecasts. They have not denied those risks and have not yet had the time to fully respond. In the meantime the Cabinet have based an important decision on the forecasts. It is the wisdom of that decision that is in question, nothing more.

So BayJay, if, after consideration, Nick Whitfield et al report back that they feel the forecast is closer to the council's prediction, than RISC's (and therefore continue to suggest that they would not support a non-denominational school on the Clifden site) would you accept this?

Mir4, this is 2012. We all have equal access to the same data.

Bayjay we do not have access to all the data as many things are not freely available and easily accessable on the net. The director of education would naturally have access to a lot of yet unpublished data, new figures, pupil details, confidential and up to the minute inforamtion regarding individual schools admissions, performance, make up together with information on the long history of education and education trends in this borough and neighbouring boroughs.He would also have the expertise and experience to scrutinize these figures with a greater degree of accuracy than you or I . He will have used this information in producing his forecasts and a thorough risk assessment would of course have been done without which the council would not have based their plans on his forecasts. What I am debating is the assumption here that the council is wrong despite having access to the best independant information because RISC sees things differently based on a more limited access to data and information.
With regard to the Lib dems ,it is naturally in the interests of the party in opposition to scrutinize and oppose the councils strategies and I respect that, but it does not necessarily mean that they have a valid case based on sound evidence. I am sure that during any public consulation period more data will become available and questions answered.I think that we all need to await that period patiently rather than tearing apart the integrity of Lord True and his team as some have done on here (and yes I have read back!).

seenbutnotheard, they would need to address each of the factors identified in the RISC paper (population pressures in neighbouring boroughs, the uncertainties in the Kingston school provision, the unlikelihood of 2 Secondary Free Schools opening in 2013 etc) and show that they are either unfounded or already accounted for in their forecasts. If they did that, then I would feel more reassured that Twickenham was not going to run out of community Secondary school places as early as 2014. However, it is not possible to produce a forecast of this nature without any uncertainty at all, so I would still prefer the Clifden Road school to have as many community places as possible (bearing in mind that if there is overprovision of community places, then the community places at the Califden Road school could still be occupied by Catholics). I think it is important to maximise flexibility.

So, actually, you are never going to accept the argument for a Catholic School.
That's ok in itself, we all have different opinions, I just think that it is important to be honest from the start.

If I were Nick Whitfield, or one of his team, I could not help but think that whatever I said there would always be a "yeah, but...".

I really do not think that we are going to get anywhere else in this debate until we know what Michael Gove decides, so, on that note I am going to retire from this thread until after Christmas.

I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and all the very best for 2012.

"Bayjay we do not have access to all the data as many things are not freely available and easily accessable on the net"
Mir4, I'm sorry you're simply not correct. All of the data is freely available. If it is not already online then it is available via the Freedom of Information process. RISC, the LibDems, and others have been following democratic procedure, using the scrutiny process. Thankfully we are well past the days when we just had to accept that our councils would always do what was right and sensible, without any redress.

I repeat, that the data is not "wrong". It has a risk associated with it, and a professional risk analyst would be able to quantify that risk. That has not been done, and therefore the decision based on the data may be wrong. If it is then the council will not be able to claim that they were not warned.

So, actually, you are never going to accept the argument for a Catholic School
No, I stated very early on in this debate that I would support a Catholic school with inclusive admissions, and have stuck to that.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Mir 4 - the point I was trying to make was that Cllr. Eady in the motions debate seemed to be suggesting that the Council expand the existing five community secondary schools during the next few years rather than introduce sixth forms. This could be one way of fitting in all the extra children who are coming up through all the expanded primary schools but it is the first time it's been raised and I think it would not be popular with parents who have already been through years and years of portacabins, building sites and overcrowding in community schools. He seemed to be suggesting that if this expansion happened and the Clifden site became a 50:50 Catholic Academy those two things together might meet the demand for extra secondary places for the time being. Cllr. Eady lives in Teddington and his ward is Fulwell so he is very aware of the problems that are already manifesting themselves in this part of the Borough. Trafalgar and Stanley Primary Schools are both linked to Teddington School at present but hardly any children from Trafalgar and not many from Stanley are now getting in and they will find it even harder if the linked schools criteria is abolished. There are going to be 210 children coming out of those two schools every year in a few years. The three primary schools in the Central Teddington/Hampton Wick area now have nine forms coming through between them from current Year 2 I think (it's only seven at present) plus some children from Sacred Heart School choose to go to Teddington plus about 30 children a year from Kingston who can't be excluded as they live closer than many children in the Fulwell area. Plus if linked schools policy is abolished Teddington will be an option for St. James children and private school children who live close to it. So that is enough children to fill Teddington School on their own leaving many children who live further away with nowhere to go other than Twickenham Academy which is also some way away and will very soon be full with children who live much nearer. These 200 empty places are a) mostly at Richmond Park Academy and b)only for a few more years. There has been no response to this.

The other variable that I never see mentioned is a change to the number of children who leave the state system because it doesn't serve the needs of dyslexic children properly. My daughter is now in Year 6 and her class of 30 has lost 5 boys to the private sector since the end of Year 2 because they were dyslexic and weren't getting enough help or specialist teaching. No other childen have left to go private. I have heard the same sad story about other local state primary schools. If LB Richmond had a dyslexia strategy with specialist teachers such as they have in some parts of the country the retention rate in the state sector might go up quite a lot. But no doubt they would want to avoid that!

If Nick and the Director for Finance are confident that there will be enough secondary school places and then money left to build a new community school, they should explain the rationale to us. As professionals they should have logical answers to defend their analysis compared to the ones done by Cllr Eady or RISC. To just simply not respond or say there is no need for professionals to respond to amateurs is not acceptable.

I really do not think that we are going to get anywhere else in this debate until we know what Michael Gove decides, so, on that note I am going to retire from this thread until after Christmas

I totally agree with you seenbutnotheard!...it's really not going anywhere...and for that reason, I am also retiring from this thread.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year! x

Hi Lottie thank you for clarifying your thoughts. I truly believe though that if the link system is abolished and the clifden road site is a VA Catholic school the children in St.James' and Sacred heart will chose it in preference to Teddington and the other community schools. This will free up places for other primary schools in schools such as Teddington . The fact that such a large number signed the petition in favour of a catholic school really shows that a catholic VA school is very much supported by the Catholic community.

If the Clifden school is a 50/50 academy it will not even house all of the children from St.James' school let alone Sacred heart and the other 4 Catholic schools in the borough. With the even huger increase in birthrate in the neighbouring boroughs (particaulrly Hounslow where there is a large Catholic population) it is only going to get much much harder than it already is for Catholic children to get places out of borough. During the last 2 years changes in admissions criteria in some of the Catholic secondary schools (which children from this borough have in the past attended) have meant that the doors have become closed to Richmonds pupils. The Catholic primary school population is also an expanding community and our schools are also very much over subscribed too.

This is undoubtedly a very historical decision and a vital one for the Catholic community as this will in all likeleihood be our last chance to establish a catholic secondary school in the borough to give the children from the 6 primary schools the continuity of education that currently they have to leave the borough to access.Many of these children currently have to make very long journeys to access this schooling. With population increases accross london the future for Catholic children to continue to access out of borough catholic secondary schools is already very very bleak and is obviuosly going to be unsustainable in the future.This is going to cause a huge crisis in the very near future if this school is not built now with nearly 300 children looking for school places.The 1,888 children in Richmonds catholic primary schools are also part of this borough too. They are the children of this boroughs tax payers and they too need to be educated within their own community. Currently these children have no where to go in their own borough at the age of 11 as with the exception of Sacred heart they have no catholic secondary school or links to non catholic schools in the borough.

I too feel that at this point little is to be achieved in debating further until we have that decision from Michael Gove and the oportunity to debate fully with all of the facts on the table through the public consultation. Knowing that we are all busy parents and have the best interests of our children at heart i am sure that we could all do with a break to just focus on having fun with our families. So from my heart I wish you all a very very happy Christmas filled with lots of joy.

Catch up with you all in the New year!

"If the Clifden school is a 50/50 academy it will not even house all of the children from St.James' school let alone Sacred heart and the other 4 Catholic schools in the borough"
Mir4, it will give Catholic priority access to 50% of the places, and give them equality of access to the remaining places. Most objective people would see that situation as a privelege, not to be sniffed at. If there is still further demand for a second Catholic Academy after that then, in accordance with the new Education Act, the Catholic community can pursue that aim through the Academies programme. In doing so they may be in competition with others who will be arguing their own case for a particular type of school, but I think most people would see that as a more level playing field than has existed in the past.

RISC has posted the following account of the Council meeting on their facebook site www.facebook.com/groups/Faithschoolsrichmond/permalink/326290357382262

Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas and New Year and looking forward to continuing our discussion in the New Year.

From Zac Goldsmith's eNewsletter dated Dec 19:

'NORTH KINGSTON SCHOOLS UPDATE: Kingston Council still faces a major challenge in providing enough primary and secondary school places. I have bombarded the Secretary of State and Lord Hill with letters on the subject, and have urged other Kingston residents to do the same.

I welcomed the announcement that the Borough is to receive part of a £500m grant this autumn, but this still isn't enough, and so I am now embarking on a campaign to obtain a proper 3 year settlement which will allow the council to secure a loan to build the new Secondary school.'

See also: North Kingston school proposal news (last updasted July 2011)]

This scheme may either never happen at all or be much delayed, increasing the demand for places at Richmond borough schools.

Just thought I'd add an update about Maharishi Free School Richmond to this thread.

I've been the proposer for both the existing Lancashire Maharishi Free School and the new one for Richmond.

Right now we are proposing a two-class-per-year Primary School and 3-class-per-year Secondary School on the Oldfield Road site. We are planning to have 24 children per class.

Maharishi Free Schools are non-faith, 100% inclusive - with CofE, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Hindu, Catholic and atheist children of every socio-economic group attending the existing School. 10% of our current intake have special educational needs, and 15% qualify for free school meals.

If any of you came to our first public presentation at Oldfield you will have witnessed first hand the widespread popularity of the School - in a room which could only accommodate 100 chairs we had 150 people, some of whom ended up queuing right down the corridor. We have already secured 100% pre-registrations for the Primary School intake for 2013, and the Secondary School intake is filling up fast. Most of the pre-registrations have come from Hampton post codes. Most of our proposed Board of Governors are local educators and parents. We are still accepting pre-registrations for primary and secondary for both 2013 and 2014.

To address a point raised by a previous poster, I'll share a question that was recently asked by a Richmond parent - is there a particular type of parent who sends their child to Maharishi School?
Hmmm... given the mix we have in our current school I had to think about that one for a moment. What I realised was that the ONE thing that our parents had in common was that they were better informed than the average parent and more likely to take an active interest in their child's education. The more informed a parent was, the more likely they were to send their child to Maharishi School.

Academically Maharishi Schools are consistently rated 'outstanding'. More information on our academic results is available from our website www.maharishischool.com and for a quick summary have a look at the short video on our home page.

Anyway...sorry if this has turned into a long, drawn out summary...

If you would like to find out more you are invited to our next public presentations Saturday 7th of January at 10:30 at the Oldfield Center, Oldfield Road, Hampton; and Thursday the 12th of January at 19:30 at York House, Richmond Road, Twickenham, TW1 3AA.

Richard - Many thanks 4 the update and your efforts. I have noticed on your website www.maharishischool.com/AdmissionandOversubscriptionPolicy.htm
that your admissions policy want pupils and their parents to follow Transcendental Meditation (TM). So how will you deal with applications from parents who do want want to practise TM . And what about recruitment for teaching and non teaching staff - will staff also need to follow TM?
Grateful if you could clarify

Hi Richard. You refer to Maharishi s
"schools" as being "consistently outstanding". Can you confirm that you currently only have one school, and that as it has only had one inspection, in 2009?

Also your statement that "the more informed a parent was the more likely they were to send their child to Maharishi" sounds very dubious. How exactly did you measure that? I'm a very well informed parent and would hope my children would be taught to think objectively at school, and learn how to critique marketing statements like that to determine whether they were likely to be valid.

According to the website, the Maharishi School in Lancashire (the only one in the country so far, which was an independent school that recently converted into a state-funded Free School) only has 12 children per class at secondary level - half the class size proposed for Richmond - and 20 at primary level.
Of course, that isn't to say that a Richmond Maharishi School wouldn't be a good school, but the past performance of the Lancashire school isn't a very reliable guide. The key will be the quality and track record of the teachers. Maybe Richard can comment on that.

I wonder how the Maharishi school will pay its way with only 24 per class. Its government grant will be so much per child, based on 30 per class. Assuming 2 form entry and 5 years in a community junior school, this pays for 1/30 of a class teacher + 1/300 of everything else.

The Mararishi class will bring in only 80 % of this, so either the teacher must be paid 20 % less or the overheads must be cut to the bone or the parents will be asked to make up the shortfall or the Maharishi Foundation (which has about £2 mn annual income) will subsidise the school.

It would be helpful if Richard could tell us what they intend.