New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2

[BayJay]

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

@chrissquire stick to the main thread topic. I can't see what you are trying to do here. Provoke more anti-catholic feeling?? This is one school. You will find most Catholics are accepting and not homophobic. The thread is not about what Catholics stand for etc it's about the proposed new school in Richmond Borough.

I also fail to see the point in mentioning this Guardian article. Anti-Catholic sentiment has no place in a dignified debate.

The Guardian article strikes me as hitting an anti-Catholic faith school note rather than being specifically anti-Catholic. As such its perfectly relevant to the debate we're having here on mumsnet, although probably not to the views of RISC.

The accusation is that the CES has been doing something illegal, and this possibly illegal activity may have affected all RC secondary schools in the country. It raises the question of how politics and religion can (or should) be separated in education at faith schools.

Going to have to 'agree to disagree' on this one LittleMrsMuppet. Chris Squire is well known in the local media for his baiting tatics. He has a political agenda too.

Steady on guys. No personal attacks please.

Absolutely Bayjay, just feel that some parts of this thread are getting too political.

Don't worry. It does that sometimes, and then someone objects, and then it stops.

Chris has been contributing to the thread for a long time, and has given us some very positive and insightful input, so coming down on him like a ton of bricks isn't going to be appreciated by the 'regulars'.

I also agree that Chris has shared valuable information and request all to not get personal. Agree at times, his posts have been too political for my liking, but when requested, it has stopped. I also admire him posting in his real name that makes him an easy target - when many of us use screen names and conceal our personal agenda. I would not be surprised if Lord True is one of our distinguished undercover "regulars":)
Coming back to discussing the CES news - firstly its a national news item, covered widely in national media, it is not an opinion from Chris. Also I do not believe personally that the news evoked any anti-Catholic sentiments. It does however raises questions on the action of the CES (that was sent to 385 Catholic state secondary schools across the country). It becomes relevant for us as CES is involved in a proposal for a new Catholic state secondary school in Richmond. All the new proposers (CES/Diocese, RET, Maharishi etc) should expect the local community to discuss and consider their local or national actions, as part of the evaluating their proposals.

I have engaged in the public arena in this borough for 25 year so personal remarks from people I have never met or will meet cloaked by pseudonyms are not a problem for me. I?ve had worse from a Conservative councillor with less excuse.

I posted the excerpt from the CES story because Jeev had alluded to it and it is directly relevant to the issue, for non-Catholics, of ?do we want a Catholic secondary school on this site now, if this is what goes on?? I was unaware that CES was a sponsor of of the proposed school. Also it is interesting and encouraging to see that the pupil had a mind of her own and was willing to act on it; and it is amusing to imagine what the head teacher thought of the Gay Pride badges. All of which seems to me to merit discussion in this Forum.

CES have issued a statement (April 26) saying ? . . The online petition, makes it clear that people under the age of 16 cannot sign it. We will issue new guidance for our schools to ensure that they are aware of this.?

So the head teacher had no business urging his 13 year olds to sign it. The petition came from the Coalition for Marriage not the Church hierarchy who were perhaps taken unawares by it.

Having gone to a Catholic secondary school myself I can vouch for the fact that pupils at Catholic schools have minds of their own to the same degree as pupils from any other school.

There will be a special meeting of the Education and Children's
Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee to discuss the report on the Council?s school consultation on 15 May. The agenda and papers will be published on Friday May 4. O&S will be able to make a recommendation to the Cabinet, but will not be able subsequently to ?call in? or challenge the decision. Any recommendation is in any case not binding, but it carries some weight.

This meeting is not yet in the calendar of meetings but Democratic Services have just confirmed to me that it has been called.

The Cabinet meeting which will decide what to do next will be on Thursday May 24. Should be fun!

Chris does that mean that the consultation results will be available for the 1st time on 04 May or has that already been seen by the Councillors ?

Jeev: I don't know; I have never been a councillor so I don't know how these matters are handled. If Cllrs have the papers before May 4 they should not and generally will not share them with anyone else until then.

As we're approaching the maximum 1000 message limit again, and there is bound to be a flurry of postings over coming days and weeks, I've started a new thread to continue the conversation here.

Is this the most commented local thead on Mumsnet ?

The agenda for the meeting of the Education and Children?s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 7:00 pm has been published.

The report Use Of Clifden Road Site outlines the responses to the consultation on the proposal
to lease the Clifden Road site to the Diocese of Westminster for the
establishment of voluntary-aided secondary and primary schools.

It says: ? . . 4.17 The Education Act 2011 introduced a new section to the Education and Inspections Act 2006, section 6A, in force from 1 February 2012. This section requires that if a local authority thinks a new school needs to be established in their area, they must seek proposals for an Academy. As set out in paragraphs 4.14 and 4.15 above, officers? view is that, whilst use of the Clifden Road site for the proposed Catholic Schools is recommended to meet strong demand for such schools in the borough, there is not currently a need for a new school to be established and it is not advised therefore that the Council is currently required to seek proposals for an academy on the Clifden Road site . . ?

The report Statutory Proposals To Establish A Voluntary-Aided Catholic Secondary School And A Voluntary-Aided Catholic Primary School is ?to follow?.

A maximum of 6 speakers are allowed on any one agenda item. For the purposes of hearing representations Items 4a ? Use of Clifden Road Site and 4b ? Statutory Proposals to Establish a Voluntary-Aided Catholic Secondary School and a Voluntary Aided Catholic Primary School will be taken together.

6 members of the public may speak in favour of the recommendations being made and 6 against. The normal stipulation that speakers will be taken in order of registration is waived. If more than 12 people register to speak, all will be invited to York House prior to the start of the meeting to decide in their groups (either ?for? or ?against?) which of their number shall address the Committee.

I recommend that people read the survey results and make their own independent conclusions before reading the council officers' report to see how closely they align. That's always an interesting exercise with any kind of study of this type!

I can see there are three contact names at the end of the report. One of them used to be a Benedictine Monk. Another sends his children to an out-of-borough Catholic school. The third is in the Cabinet, under the thumb of Lord True (trustee of a charity providing funds to Catholic causes and also a parent who has sent his children to out-of-borough Catholic schools).

Of course, I'm sure the report is entirely unbiased. I'm off to read it now .....

Just had a quick look at the council survey summary. It looks like Catholics were over four times as likely to respond to this survey as non-Catholics compared to their demographic - 57% (2327) of respondents, and probably the vast majority of the 1182 paper copies. Of those in support of the proposal, 98% were Catholics, but it also looks like the vast majority of non-Catholics were against the proposal.

So that's a lot of Catholic respondents. Overall it looks like 60% of respondents were parents of primary age children. There were 1943 Catholic school children in Richmond's schools according to the 2011 Dfe data. So 2327 responses would be a remarkable turnout from Catholics considering women were more likely to respond. What would be the average number of chldren per family, do you think?

But as the summary says, 'The consultation was open to residents and non-residents. As such, this is not a representative sample survey.'

muminlondon - The figures show that there were about the same number of respondents for those under five and over 12 as there were for primary aged parents, it is clearly not just primary parents resonding!

Before this thread fills up, I'm just posting the link to the new thread again to save people getting too frustrated when they hit 'post message' and find they lose everything.

Just filling up post 999.

And finally 1000. See you all over here.