New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2

[BayJay]

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

What do seans parents think of Mr Geoffrey Smiths comments in response to a comment accusing him of supporting sectarianism, wrote:

?There is nothing wrong with sectarianism, Mr Sanderson. I don't want to be like you, or have my children educated in the same school as your children. We have our values, and you have yours, and we are determined to preserve our traditions at all costs. If that means excluding others from our schools, or at least preventing them from gaining any significant influence in them, that's the way it will have to be.? This might be shocking, but at least it?s honest. If even a small proportion of those who want an exclusively Catholic school at Clifden Road share this view, then its worrying

Akhan - you have no evidence to suggest that "Mr Geoffrey Smith" is involved at all in the Richmond debate. His comment was on the Telegraph website wasn't it? If you took the time, you would see that he is a long-standing contributor who has no connection to Richmond at all.

Would you like me to cut and paste some of the truly terrible anti-faith and particularly anti Catholic things that were written in response to that article too?

How sad that this is what Risc has come to.

I do feel desperately sorry for children that have to make a long journey to school but when it's inflicted on them by their own parents who don't want them to go to school in their own community with everyone else I refuse to submit to emotional blackmail!

Steady on everyone. We've covered this ground before and I don't think any of us want to spend our Easter repeating old arguments.

Akhan, seenbutnotheard is right to object to cherry-picked quotes being reposted here. There is intolerance on both sides.

Seenbutnotheard, Akhan is not representing RISC, and so your final comment is uneasonable.

((Akhan. totally agree. Very worrying. Lets use the model of Northern Island 30 years ago to base all our decisions on, ... hmmm scary))

Dear Sean, actually no, urg!.... its too much, enough!

Dear Seans Parents,

A school is a place where you learn school subjects.
A church is a place where you learn about church stuff.

They are two entirely different buildings, with different purposes. Maybe you could use Wikipedia to look it up if you are not sure about this?

Here's an idea.
If our gang doesn't come to your church and insist you all start doing P.E. there and doing Quadratic equations, then.... maybe your gang could leave alone School buildings that are for teachers and school subjects and stop taking over them for church stuff ? Yes?

My Mother was, and is intensly religious. Because of this, she often went to two church services on a sunday, morning and evening, and took me to sunday school. She also taught me loads of religion at home.

I did not need to learn it school also, as she mentioned all the time. A child does not NEED to have this at school, as well as at a home and a church.

(In fact, If a family is truly religious at home then there is no need for it at school at all. If a child needs to spend a lot of time in a Hospital, must that also be a special, one relgion only Hospital? Shall we separate every single local public institution on religious grounds?

Catholic Libraries anyone?
How fragile is a so called faith if a family and home together is not enough ??)

A child may go to a Catholic school and then..... Ta Dah! on the day he leaves, or even before, he may decide he is a total Atheist!
Clearly......
......you cannot make him a Catholic by sending him to a Catholic School. How could you have justified Sean's place at school if he decides Faith is a load of rubbish after one term at the school!

BUT Jacob decides to be a devout Catholic for his whole life on the exact same day?

IT is actually, a true NEED for all children to go to a school near to them. Whether a child's parents like a RC God, Vishnu, Yogic Flying, whatever.
It is still a NEED for all our children.

I don't want children from Catholic families to have to travel far, but the point is, a Catholic school will not stop Kids travelling far. It will only SWAP Catholic children travelling far (due to their parents choice of a school) for other children travelling far. Because Twick Academy and Orleans are going to both be full. There is a big increase for places coming.
Primary's which are bursting lead to full Secondaries, obviously.

Having 100% exclusive schools for one group cannot overall reduce children travelling far. How can it? Obviously it can only make it worse overall.
(St James Primary is next to us and Kids come from a vast area to that, crazy, but strangely doesn't seem to bother the parents who managed to get their kids in there. hmmmm)

Oh sorry I said 100% earlier. How silly. It is proposed to be a very generous 98% is it? or 95%? How generous.

ALSO Sean is too young to choose a school based on his own religious preference.

A child will just copy what is around them, unthinkingly. It is not their choice and it is impossible to choose until you are a grown-up and can make an informed decision.

If Sean grew up with Cannibals or Sun-God worshipers he would copy that too. Children cannot decide this at age 5 or eleven for the rest of their lives.

It is unfair to give Parents who follow a faith a choice that other Parents do not have. If I want a Jewish school for my child, as my Grandparents were Jewish, then where is my Richmond Jewish school to choose??

COMPARE THESE TWO BELOW:
Seans choice of school would be limited by his parents wish to try and make him follow their spriritual choice. Their OWN wish would limit his choice !!

Jacob's choice would be limited by his own local goverment! His parents have NO choice and NO right to indulge any of their wishes. Purely on distance alone will he be given a school place.

IT is simpy Wrong to give one group such a privilige alone, of more choice.

Atheists, Jewish, Muslim, any other group you pick-- They are not asking for a special school just for them. The Catholic Church is asking for it, and trying to get all us local tax-payers to pay for it.

That is totally unfair.

I have published the 2,700 word Liberal Democrat response to the Council consultation on sixth forms (just ended) Sixth forms: A good idea or not? on the Lib Dem website.

From part D: Effect on current providers: There is about a 30 % oversupply of post-16 provision in London. This has been caused by an increased number of school 6th forms and new Academies being opened with 6th form provision. The result is that RuTC student numbers have fallen from 4,500 in 2008/09 to 3,600 in 2011 and are projected to fall to 2,800 in 2013 . .

Here is part H: Optimum use of existing educational resources:

All our schools have limited space available for expansion. The borough will need to provide significant extra post 11 places by 2016. The Council has recently announced a joint feasibility study with RuTC to investigate the possibility of rebuilding the college and adding a secondary school on the site. This would be a fine idea if it stood much chance of obtaining the necessary funding from the Government. There have been two attempts in the last 10 years to restructure and rebuild the college. These all failed because of lack of Government money.

The Government's policy is to reduce the role of local government in education provision; so we consider that the likelihood of the Government helping to fund this project is remote. Priority is likely to be given to (i) new free schools and (ii) expansion of primary and secondary schools, particularly those that have converted to Academy status.

The space currently proposed for the 6th forms would provide an extra one form of entry at each school. Funding might be available from the Government under its programme to provide extra school places. This would be a much cheaper and more efficient way to solve the school place problem, and meet parents' needs, as it would provide places at schools which are currently over-subscribed for the very good reason that they are outstandingly successful.

We are quite sure that the proposals will effectively constrain further development on what are in many cases quite cramped sites. The sales of part of some of the sites will just make things worse.

? Conclusion: So the eighth challenge: "Will the proposal keep open the potential for local good schools to expand and take more 11 to 16 students?" must be answered "No". This challenge has been failed.

sorry BayJay, I will try and calm down. You are right it s old arguements. I need to be polite, I know.
But I have only recently got involved in this because I though before surely my local council won't go ahead with this.

But the longer it goes on, the more it looks like it may go ahead.
Which is why everyone needs to stand up against it. And we must not think, "oh its OK, we MAY get a school for everyone else in Eggerton road about 8 years too late for the buldge in demand for places."

I am sorry I feel so strongly that the proposed school is unfair. Especially the more I hear about the councils very dodgy assumptions that demand will somehow not rise that much

BayJay - RISC emailed this quote to all of their supporters!

Chris, I'm on my mobile so will just pick up one of your points for now.

The council haven't said who will run the Egerton Rd school, so the point about funding is premature. There is no reason why it couldn't be run as a free school and therefore get funding via that programme. The college could be one of the proposers.

I'd like the council to consider a 14-18 UTC school on the site as one option for the feasibility study.

Seenbutnotheard, I know they did. However they did put it in context.

There has been some selective quoting on both sides. Lord True quoted from this very thread in one of his speeches. Nice to know we have such a distinguished audience, but also a reminder to all of us to stay on our best behaviour.

Twocotbeds, we all feel strongly here so you're in the right place. New voices are always welcome, especially if they have something new to say. We've been running for 14 months now, but its generally been a civilised debate on both sides.

How did they 'put it in context'? - the email I saw had the same quote with the same comment at the end.

"I'd like the council to consider a 14-18 UTC school on the site as one option for the feasibility study" - Yes, so would I BayJay! I am so glad that someone else has thought that this would be a good idea too. I think it's an exciting prospect.

More information about University Technical Colleges can be found here.

Seenbutnotheard, there was a line before the quote saying where it was from. There was also an extra line at the explaining why they'd quoted it.

It was still a cherry-picked quote from an unkown person, so a bit below the belt.

I think that's a fair point BayJay and seenbutnotheard.

From Private Eye (April 6): ?The transcendental meditation (TM) movement founded by the Beatles' giggling guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, ran a private school in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, which was embraced by the state and granted free school status by the Department for Education last September.

Now two more Maharishi free schools are proposed, in Richmond, south-west London and Suffolk. Is this a good idea?

Pupils will be required to learn TM either before starting or as soon as they start at the school and will practise it for a few minutes twice a day. A job ad for teachers in Skelmersdale asks applicants to say not only how much training they have had in TM, but also to give details of their spouse and children's names and the level of their TM training. As well as the usual subjects, the curriculum for both the Richmond and Suffolk schools includes "SCI". The only explanation of this acronym on the free school website is: "SCI is an interdisciplinary subject recognised by the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) as a Theory of Knowledge discipline". SCI stands for Science of Creative Intelligence®, a series of 33 videotaped lectures by the movement's guru, who died in 2008, consisting of metaphysics wrapped in scientific language.

Unsurprisingly, IBO does not recognise it.

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was so irked by the re-election of Tony Blair in 2005 he instructed his followers to withdraw all teaching in the "scorpion nation", saying: "We are also rejecting one nation - Britain - which has proven to be a poisonous, divisive influence in the world family" (Eye 1143), a ban not rescinded until Blair left office. Should the movement take umbrage at any future democratic votes, where will that leave pupils in Lancashire, Richmond and Suffolk? ?

Questions: Chris - which parts of which school sites are the Council thinking of selling?

BayJay and Cat 2405 - if there is a 14-18 school does that mean that a lower school also has to be built somewhere to take the children for years 7, 8 & 9?

Two Cotbeds - I had a C of E upbringing where I went to Sunday school and my parents went to church and were part of a church community but never do I remember anyone at church or home suggesting that C of E children needed to go to separate schools in order to bolster their faith. In fact I think the idea that we went forth to spread ourselves about from Monday-Saturday was part of the point. I know that some of the objection to the separate Catholic school comes from people who think that the parents of the children going there are hoping that the school will do their job for them and keep their teenagers on the straight and narrow and tell them all about Catholicism so the parents are not obliged to confront their own ambiguities about some items of Catholic thought. My other half grew up with a Catholic mother in rural Wales where there was about as much chance of a Catholic Secondary School as a bus more than once a day and he says there was no sense of missing out on a Catholic education. I am genuinely curious to understand at what point it becomes so necessary to send your children to a separate school as well as to do what other religious people do with regard to being part of a faith community, discussing religion at home etc. . Does it become necessary because it begins to seem possible because you are living in a city where there are Catholic secondary schools, in a country that allow them, unlike some Catholic countries eg. France where they don't exist in the state system or in many parts of the UK where there is no possibility of having one because there aren't enough Catholics? Sorry a bit long-winded.

Lottie, UTC's are a new concept. If one was to be introduced here then the impact on other schools would need to be considered as part of the feasibility study. However, they are intended to serve a wide area, so a single middle school feeding into it wouldn't be the obvious model.

LottieProsser re sale of school sites: I've been told that the information has not yet been put into the public domain. It applies only to three schools and they are using it to obtain extra facilities; the negotiations are ongoing.

So we must wait and see.

Disclosing information about property transactions prematurely that they have been told about in confidence is the cardinal sin that councillors mustn't commit - though Cllr Arbour (Hampton Wick), who is apparently a law unto himself, has done so twice:

Cllr Tony Arbour, former Tory leader, suspended from Council for 28 days (October 20, 2009) Leak of the Council's offer for a Teddington playing field while negotiations for its purchase were going on (which could have scuppered the deal) brings about his downfall . . . . In 2007 the Council invited tenders for Terrace Gardens Yard, a very valuable housing plot in Richmond worth many millions. Cllr Arbour leaked to a local newspaper the confidential estimate of what the Council expected to get from the highest bidder . . (and) was reported to the Standards Committee for his reckless attempt to make this figure public. He was asked to make a written apology. Otherwise he would be suspended for 28 days. He apologised.

There may well be a further row when the details do become public - presumably playing fields are being sold for housing.

Chris, from the lib dem doc "It should noted that many high achieving children do not transfer from borough primary schools to our secondaries - under a third (32 %) of the 10% of top achieving children and only 38 % of the top 20% transfer."

To me this speaks volumes because it shows that our schools, while doing well, are not meeting the aspirations of many local families.
What would the lib dems do to make our local secondaries more attractive to this group? In doing that they would of course be raising standards for everyone else too.

Chris/BayJay - any idea where the stats re "under a third of the 'top achieving children' transfer to Richmond secondary schools" has come from?
I was not aware of any primary school giving specific stats results for children alongside school transfer.

TWO COTBEDS:-
COMPARE THESE TWO BELOW:

Seans choice of school would be limited by his parents wish to try and make him follow their spriritual choice. Their OWN wish would limit his choice !!
Jacob's choice would be limited by his own local goverment! His parents have NO choice and NO right to indulge any of their wishes. Purely on distance alone will he be given a school place.

IT is simpy Wrong to give one group such a privilige alone, of more choice.

Twocotbeds Schools for as long as I can remember both as teacher and parent have been about teaching 'the whole child'. A childs spirituality is a very important part of him/her and at different times on their journey they make a choice about their faith and what they believe in . Most notably this occurs at 14 for Confirmation, but the journey begins at their First holy Communion when they are 7 or 8. Any teacher and any Christian parent will be able to tell you that children are capable of independently being spiritual human beings and making decisions based on their beliefs. This cannot be compared to 'cannibalism' because it is not something a child blindly follows it is something they are given the space to develop at their own level whilst they learn about other faiths too.It is a force for good, for compassion for understanding.

Why then am Ia bad parent if I want to give my child what is good? Isn't that what we all desire for our children? We all want our children to grow up to be good people , good members of their community. Am I wrong to long for an education for my child in their own borough that follows on from their primary school experience? That gives them the same continuity of education that your children will thank fully have in schools close to you. Yes up until 2013 my children may need to travel but that will have been a decision we will have reached together in searching for what is best for them as growing young men and women.It is not about forcing our faith on them it is about supporting them as growing spiritual, emotional, social, loving beings. Our aim as a family will not be for the highest achieving school but will be for a school that they will be happy in, that follows on from their primary school experience, that allows them to grow , for us that is a Catholic school whereas for others it will be a different choice.

We all pay our taxes in this borough, we all contribute to each others education. Why then is it that nearly 2,000 children in our Catholic primary schools should not be given the same choice as other local children to have continuity in their education?

Jacob's choice as it stands is wonderful (Egerton road site permitting)! He will have access to 3 schools within a 20-25 minute journey from home. 2 of which he can comfortably and safely walk to. His sister will have access to 4 schools (incl Waldegrave). Most of the rest of the borough do not have the choice that Jacob does he is a very lucky boy. The children in Hampton for example pretty much only have one choice and an extra choice in Twickenham is unlikely to benefit them or other children around the borough.

If Clifden road was another community school all of us as tax payers would be paying for huge over provision of places in the Twickenham area and half filled schools,rather than 4 happy filled community/academy schools and one happy filled Catholic school where all of us have a chance to have a real choice in our borough.

As I have said before no Catholic schools have a huge banner saying ' no one else allowed' and all of the Catholic primary schools in the borough have children of other or non faiths within their walls. But the majority of these schools are also quite small and demand for places far exceeds their buildings. The Clifden road site is also going to be a comparatively small school to serve the needs of 6 feeder primary schools it would not be able to do what it says on the tin if suddenly it turned the majority of those children away to fulfil a large quota of community places. It would be offering places to children who already have other really good choices at the expense of those who desperetely want this school for its ethos and have no other choice like it in their own borough. That would be wrong.

You are right when you say Jacob is special and unique. All of our children are and they need encouragement to be so. By insisting that my children go to a local community school it is in a way enforcing a ONE way of doing things, a set belief on my child one that he/she has not experienced in primary school and is alien to his/her experience and beliefs.There is room in this world for all of us to be ourselves and unique .We are not a totalitarian state but we are a collection of free human beings of many different beliefs and faiths and that is to be celebrated not scorned. To do this we need to take time and step back to understand the deep beliefs of others not judge them through our own different experiences. Catholic education is fundamentally important to catholic families this is shown in the fact that our schools are filled , that so many of our children travel. All of us as parents have the desire to do what is best for our children in common. As Catholic parents we would just like this opportunity now in our own borough

On matters of principle the two sides have different views that are very hard to reconcile without any intent of getting to a compromise solution .

What really is dissapointing in all this for me is the way the council has done their secondary school projections . I won't repeat all the prev comments again but that questions the credebility and independence of the consultation

Mir4, you are asking for something very tailored to a particular group, while saying others not belonging to that group should all learn together in a generic environment.

I don't mind you asking for a Catholic school under the new Free School legislation, because all special interest groups have equal opportunities under that.

I do mind you asking for it under the old VA rules, which are outdated and have been replaced for good reason.