New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2

[BayJay]

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

seenbutnotheard - why do you think Christ's school is undersubscribed for it's faith places ?

Parrich, section 4.8 of this doc gives the info on Christs. It says 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.

Makes all the more good sense than to have the Free school at Clifden Road and a Catholic academy could be proposed for Richmond college.

Lord True may be looking for a win-win here. Give Clifden to Free school and claim that he listened to the consultation and ask the Catholics to propose for Richmond College (it is debatable if he will push them for an academy or continue to take a legal risk on VA status)
This could be the facesaver solution that the political experts on this thread posted a while ago - cant find it as we are really filling up the pages here soon !!!

DfE: Secondary School Applications and Offers in England March 2012 reports for Richmond borough: Places: 1,610; applications from borough residents: 1,537. First preference: 62.8%; second: 16.3% ; and third: 6.6 %; none of prefs 1- 3: 14.3 %; none of prefs 1-6: 9.3 %. 80 % of residents were offered a place in a borough school leaving (1,610 - 0.8(1,537)) = 380 places for out-of-borough pupils.

Does anyone have or know where to find last year's numbers?

RISC have published their response to the Council press release re Richmond College and Jeremy Rodell's letter to the RTT replying to V.Herd's personal attack last week on their facebook page.

2012 secondary school applications and offer stats

2011 secondary school applications and offer stats

And here's that data compared with neighbouring boroughs.

2012 data

First pref - 62.8% (Kingston 63.1%; Hounslow 67.8%)
Top three - 85.7% (Kingston 92.9%; Hounslow 87.3%)

No offer corresponding to pref - 9.3% (Kingston 3.1%; Hounslow 4.5%)
Offers from another LA - 20.2% (Kingston 23.1%; Hounslow 24.2%)

2011 data

First pref - 61.7% (Kingston 64%; Hounslow 67.4%)
Top three - 83.8% (Kingston 91.3%; Hounslow 86.4%)

No offer corresponding to pref - 10.3% (Kingston 3%; Hounslow 5.7%)
Offers from another LA - 21.9% (Kingston 24.3; Hounslow 22.2%)

Thoughts?

• Richmond still has the highest percentage of outer London boroughs for 'no offer corresponding to preference'.
• Richmond has improved slightly on all measures since last year including more offers in-borough. But it has some way to go.
• Kingston and Hounslow have more children with offers from another LA than Richmond does.

Actually, this year Richmond is third from bottom of the table in the country for 'no offer corresponding to preferences' - just above Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham.

Last year we were at least above Southwark on that measure and fourth from the bottom of 150 or so LAs, rather than third.

So from 2011 to 2012, borough applications went up by 18 from 1519 to 1537; places went up by 40 from 1570 to 1610. Unfilled places went up from 51 to 73.

More places at Grey Court and Orleans Park are being taken by Kingston and Hounslow pupils, I would say. It's hard to see whether the proportion going out of borough are getting the choices they want, but it would be useful know.

Re: ChrisSquire Thu 22-Mar-12 22:20:26 This is wrong of course; here?s the point I was trying to make:

One measure of how much slack there is the secondary school system is the number of borough school places not taken by borough pupils:

2011: = 1570 - 0.781519 = 384
2012: = 1610 - 0.801537 = 383

We can?t tell from the DfE table how many of these places were left unfilled. This figure has not yet, I think, been published.

But these are just offers and acceptances - I looked at this when there was debate about 200 unfilled places because the offer data suggested there were only 40 or so. The significance of the high numbers allocated a school that didn't match a preference is that they keep on looking for something better. So last year some 160 pupils were scrambling around, on waiting lists, checking out private schools or looking to move away. Meanwhile, even those with 'good' offers others would mug their granny for also look to upgrade.

So there's no real clarity until about October once the waiting lists have stopped moving. Those living on the doorstep of Orleans and Teddington at the wrong primary schools have a chance on the waiting list after 1 September.

The papers for Council meeting next Tue 27 March
cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/documents/g2795/Public%20reports%20pack,%20Tuesday,%2027-Mar-2012%2019.00,%20Council.pdf?T=10

In the section on members questions, there are questions on secondary school places and sixth forms. Plus the Councils corporate plan for 2012/13 will be endorsed at this meeting. Section 5.1.3 on schools (Page 39) mentions
free schools and a Local Catholic secondary but not type of that school. It also does not contain any new community secondary school.

From the minutes of February's Council meeting:

? . . 6(d) In accordance with the notice given, Cllr Williams asked the Cabinet Member for Schools: ?Will he comment on the recent statement by the Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign that, in proposing a new Voluntary Aided school at Clifden Road, the Council is in breach of the Education Act 2011, which requires Councils that need a new school first to try and set up a new Academy or Free school, rather than a Voluntary Aided school??

Cllr Hodgins: ?Let me reassure you that it is the professional advice of officers both in Legal and Education Services that this statement as referred to does not accurately reflect the proposal and specifically under Section 11(1A) of the Education Act, the Diocese is able to propose and advertise such a change. The proposal was approved by the Secretary of State barely two months ago.?

Cllr Williams asked a supplementary question regarding the need to get a second legal opinion on this issue. Cllr Hodgins said this was not required.

Cllr Evans asked a supplementary question about the decision making process for the use of the Clifden Road site. Cllr Hodgins said that following the full public consultation, the decision would be taken by Cabinet.

Cllr Eady asked a supplementary question regarding the potential for a Catholic Academy in place of a Catholic Voluntary Aided Secondary School. Cllr Hodgins said the proposal had been put forward by the Diocese and not the Council . . '

The proposal was approved by the Secretary of State barely two months ago
Of course that is not correct. The diocese were given permission by the Secretary of State to publish proposals but that is not the same as approving the proposals. Plus the approval to publish the proposals was given under the old Education Act which no longer applied by the time they actually published them.

So will there be any meetings to debate the proposal before it goes to the cabinet? Like a council or committee meeting?

Yes, it goes to the Scrutiny Committee on May 15th.

gmsing - why is there no community secondary in corporate plan ? Atleast the mention of Rrichmond college feasibility study should have been mentioned if they were really serious about it. How can it be passed with that omission ?
Chris - Interesting exchange between Cllr Hodgins and Williams - but seems that Cllr Hodgins just brushed aside Cllr Willams.
If Lib Dems feel it needs a second legal opinion, why dont they seek one ?

Akhan: the Lib Dems have not taken a view as to whether a second legal opinion is needed: they are content to let RISC make its case if it can. I suspect that Cllr Malcolm Eady?s personal view is that the Council officers, with whom he has worked well in the past, up to 2010, know what they are doing and are acting lawfully.

So we must wait upon events - the next event is tomorrow night?s Council meeting which will be webcast.

If the VA proposal is indeed legal, and is accepted without revision, quite apart from any notion of inclusivity, it will be the odd one out if all the others convert to academies - the only one to be legally obliged to follow the national curriculum, for example.

Of course if it converted later but kept its admission policies that would be extremely cynical.

muminlondon - it was mentioned on this blog a few weeks ago that all the RC schools are converting to academies, due to funding constraints . Clearly the intent will be that if there is a VA school in Richmond to convert into an academy soon after . But in that case they can retain their existing admission policy and not comply with the 50-50 rule.
Hence you are right the current VA proposal is just to get around that rule !

The RuTC site is an existing large tertiary college - does anyone know how much open space it has to build a secondary school? Or it it the case that it require rebuilding or downsizing the existing college facilities to fit in a new secondary school

Jeev, I think the college may need to downsize in any case due to the introduction of Sixth Forms here and in other London boroughs, and because of the changes to educational maintenance allowance. The feasibility study for creating a school on the site will no doubt be considering that option in the context of securing the college's long term future, as well as providing much needed school places.

How does the education maintenance allowance work ? Are you implying that there will be less money for an establish RuTC, but the govt will be able to fund 6th forms in the other secondaries. Is it driven by the vision to decentralise 6th forms in Richmond and other London boroughs?

I do wonder whether the costs and efforts and massive change needed to downsize an existing college and re-configure it to fit in a new secondary school is better than just have a new secondary school at a site

Why the borough needs at least two sites for inclusive secondary schools:

I have reworked part of the Mar 27 RISC email to make the arithmetic easier to follow:

The Council?s secondary school plan relies on three assumptions:

A. Free Schools: The plan assumes 100 secondary places at Free Schools by 2013, with 95 % of them taken in-borough ? 95 extra in-borough places. Applications for Free Schools opening in Sep 2013 had to be submitted to the DfE by 24th Feb; local councils have no say as to which schools are supported. The only secondary Free School applications are the New Local School for Twickenham (NLST, 150 places) and part of the Maharishi (? 75 places). It?s unlikely that both will be funded. We won?t know finally until August. If the NLST is funded, it will need a site.

B: New school in North Kingston: At the beginning of 2011 Kingston completed the selection process for a new secondary on a site in N Kingston. It was awarded to a (new local) trust . . But the DfE has still not provided any money. The likelihood of it being ready for opening as planned in Sep 2015 is increasingly remote.

Richmond?s current plan assumes:

a) The Kingston school gets funded and built on time to the size planned; and
b) The result is that a lot of children go there instead of Grey Court, despite the fact that Kingston itself is desperate for the extra places.

The plan assumes the number of out of borough children at Grey Court drops from 135 in 2012 to 50 in 2015, yielding 85 extra in-borough places by 2015.

C. Fewer Hounslow children: because most of the secondaries are near to borough borders, a third of the places are currently occupied by children from other boroughs who live nearby. Half of these are children from Hounslow. Apart from Grey Court, the Council?s plan also assumes a reduction in out of borough take-up at other schools of a further 125 extra in-borough places by 2015, mainly by taking fewer children from Hounslow. There is little evidence to support the idea that demand from Hounslow will drop significantly, especially post 2015 when their huge birth rate increase in recent years will start to be felt at secondary level.

Assumptions A, B and C are independent, so there are 8 possible outcomes. The Council has chosen the most favourable, which we may code (A+B+C+), to forecast a gain of 305 extra in-borough places by 2015. The other 7 outcomes are: 180, 220, 95, 210, 85, 125 and 0.

In fact, of course, we don't know what probabilities to assign to A, B and C so we have no way of forecasting the outcome except that it must lie between 305 (A+B+C+) and 0 (A-B-C-).

(A-B-C-) seems quite plausible to me. This is 305 places fewer than the council?s plan, i.e. 2 5-form entry secondary schools, over and above the one in the plan as a possibility for ?2016 or beyond? (and shown in 2016 in the tables) to cope with the increasing numbers from the primaries. So there?s a chance they?ll need three schools by 2016!

And that?s assuming that:

a) none of the three existing Academies succeeds in becoming as attractive to parents as the top borough schools ? which would be a good thing in terms of quality, but would increase overall demand ? and

b) that removal of the linked school system will not result in more Catholic parents seeking places at good community schools.

This simple model of what may happen can be made as complicated (and hopefully, thereby, more realistic) as is needed by adding more different outcomes and assigning probabilities to them. If the Council have done this, they haven't told us.

Instead they have assumed one outcome only, the one that justifies giving the Clifden Road site to the Catholics. Perhaps they are relying on Divine intervention to make it come True?