New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2

[BayJay]

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

But that link states "Pupils who were at one of the former link schools but live more than about 1.5 km away would definitely not get into OPS."

That does not appear to be what you are saying Chris when you talk about the catchment shrinking to c. 1.5km in, say, 10 years time.

This appears to be scaremongering and is not particularly helpful. I can understand that the Lib Dem's may want to put forward an alternative view to that given by the council, but when lots of parents are considering how they wish to respond to the consultation I think the Lib Dem's position, and how they come to this position needs to be clearer.

Oh dear. Let me repeat, it is not a party position, it is one local resident?s forecast. The Lib Dems are neutral about links.

I opined that the shrinkage in catchment area will occur but over a decade rather than a couple of years. If someone from Clapham reads this forum today and decides to move to East Twickenham instead of further out to get good schools for their as yet unconceived child, it could easily be 15 years before that child starts at OPS.

If you find the article unhelpful, please ignore it and do your own forecast. The main important unknown is what the parents of Vineyard kids (the chief gainers) will do and when.

I think scrapping the links is a done deal so the consultation will not affect what happens. In any case the schools will be Academies soon and free to set their own Admission Policies

Sorry Chris, I really did not mean for you to think that this was a personal attack - perhaps I am just not clear about the purpose of the website - you can see, I think, why from reading that link I might conclude that the Lib Dems are not in favour of removing the Link Policy.

I can see why parents of children who are currently linked to 'good' schools may be feeling more than a little anxious about this.

What I am personally finding interesting is the way that I am feeling about the link school consultation. I really do not feel that it is morally right to give a view as although we have no link school, we also do not have a school that we would want to attend in borough at the moment. This is despite the fact that, if the link system goes, our most local school would in fact be Orleans. (or Clifden when/if it opens).
I would be interested if others are feeling conflicted, not just from a Catholic perspective, perhaps if they intend to go private, or if they have links that they want to continue.

Seenbutnotheard, in answer to your question I do feel conflicted, because I live 1.9km from Orleans Park and have a son in Year 3. If the link stays he will get in, and so will my younger son who is in Reception. If the link goes then neither of them will get in.

Having said that, I would still support the case for it to be dropped, because I think its unfair to children at non-linked primaries. Plus, even if it stayed, and both of my own boys got in, then my younger son's friends who didn't have a sibling link probably wouldn't get in, due to the expansions at St Mary's and Orleans.

Of course, nobody knows what will happen when Orleans converts to academy status. My best hope would be if they introduced an aptitude test for their maths specialism, as my eldest son would stand a good chance of that.

Now, I've got a question for you. Has your children's RC primary school sent out information in their newsletter about the Linked School Consultation? All schools have been notified of the consultation by the council, and should have passed the information on by now. I realise that you might not be interested in a local community school for your own children, but there will be others that are interested and they should know that the consultation is taking place.

Sacred Heart argued for the policy to be dropped in 2006 when Teddington was already oversubscribed on the link criterion. It acknowledged that there were some non-Catholics at the school as well as others who preferred to stay local. The council did nothing until they were taken to the Schools Adjudicator.

I don't really understand why apart from creating a special link for SH the policy wasn't really changed for 20 years - a distance allocation for unlinked schools could have been introduced. A new loser if it stays the same (impossible with three independent admissions authorities anyway) would be a new Orleans Primary which of course would be unlinked.

For info the background to the Sacred Heart appeal is that (point 4 under proposal 4) 'The Forum considered the correspondence between the school and the LA but did not agree with the school?s view that the LSP should be abolished'.

Then in the 2007 report, paragraphs 7.10-7.16 - the exception made for Sacred Heart was seen to be temporary by the schools adjudicator who suggested that "the Council and Admission Forum propose alternatives for admissions in 2009 and beyond?. So they could have come up with alternatives but it's too late now.

Seenbutnotheard: I didn?t take your post as a personal attack; I acknowledge that it is natural for a reader to read more into the posts on the local Lib Dem website than is there; it is true that the borough stories are mainly from the Lib Dem councillors but I have inserted a few non-party pieces to make them accessible to residents. The link piece comes from a member but they do not speak for the party on this issue, Cllr Malcolm Eady does.

In point of fact it doesn?t matter what the Lib Dem policy is as they are out of office until at least May 2014, when the case will be much altered, for better or worse.

Misleading statements and lots of party point scoring in Tory newsletter we got through the door. I had hoped things will start getting more civil after last council meeting. I hope the councillors do not resort to dirty politics again next Tue and show genuine intent to solve the school controversy

Tuesday's council meeting, to which akhan refers, will start with a short debate about the petition supporting a Catholic School. There will also be some public questions relating to the Catholic School debate, and some of the members questions touch on wider school policies.

In item 16, Councilor Eady of the Lib Dems has proposed the following motion for a vote "Council notes the Administration?s plan to spend over £25 million on building extensions to the borough?s five secondary schools. In view of the significant increase in local primary pupil numbers, this Council believes that it is a higher priority to ensure that every child can be accommodated at their local secondary school rather than to add sixth forms. Council therefore calls for these new buildings to be used to increase Year 7 admission numbers.? Perhaps ChrisSquire can fill us in, but I don't think the LibDems have ever been particularly supportive of the idea of 6th Forms.

I hope that the meeting will be webcast again so that we can all see how our councillors perform.

BayJay do you have any links on the sixth form consultation? I saw a good letter in the RTT from teachers at Richmond College asking what the future will be now the abolition of the EMA is attracting fewer out of borough students and once sixth forms are in place. I quite like the idea of a school sixth form but only if numbers in each school support it. The question of effective use of resources is important at a time of cuts.

Muminlondon, the 6th Form consultation completed a few months ago. Here is the link. There was strong support from parents.

A feasibility committee has been working on the proposals. I haven't seen any published documents, but there have been references to the plans in some of the Scrutiny Committee papers and Cabinet papers that have been linked to from this thread before.

There is also information in the Disclosure Log related to a Freedom of Information request from a councillor.

Twickenham Academy and Hampton Academy are currently running their own consultations on introducing 6th forms in 2012.

p.s. Apart from the first one, the links in that disclosure log don't work. However, if you look at the format of the first link, and change the document number in line with the subsequent documents in the list then it links to the docs ok.

Thanks BayJay. There's obviously lots of support for sixth forms then. Whereas expanding intake numbers of existing schools isn't always popular and I think the council were right to allow admission numbers of existing academies to reduce to 180 while they rebuild themselves.

The Lib Dem line, taken from a Nov 26 press statement Tories plan £3 million cuts to fund school 6th forms is:

? . . Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Malcolm Eady said: "The Council has already planned to cut spending on services by 25 %, which is affecting the services it provides to adults and young people. To pay for their 6th forms programme, further cuts in services will have to be made. This level of cost can only be justified if it can significantly improve the outcomes for our young people. Government statistics show that our 19 year olds, who have been through our borough secondary schools, are already ranked within the top 10% in the country on "A" Level performance. Improved results are far from guaranteed. This plan could destabilise our local colleges. They currently provide a much wider range of courses, at all levels, than could be provided by individual small sixth forms. As with the Academy programme, it appears this administration is more interested in structural reorganisation then in educational outcomes for our young people."?

Even if the 6th forms are built and staffed they may still fail because the pupils prefer to ?go to college? instead.

Webcast link for Council meeting Dec 13.

I am really confused about this 6th form consultation. Firstly I was not aware when this happenned and who was inlcluded or asked to participate. BayJay as per yr link this was a short on-line survey that was answered by only around 1300 people. It seems majority who filled it were those who support 6th form and henece there has been claims that 85% of people in borough support it.
Did people who do not support like RUT not know about this or were there views not taken into account ? Why is Cllr Eady rasing objections now post consultation ( if there was a proper one!) . All very dubious!

Akhan, the council did send details of the consultation to all schools. Unfortunately the consultation period was short and happened over the Easter Holidays. If you look back in this forum to that time you'll see I posted a comment to say that the information didn't appear in our school newlsetter. If it did eventually appear (and I can't remember if it did) then it would have been very close to the end of the consultation.

The consultation documentation suggested reducing the Yr7 intake at the schools to accomodate 6th forms, which I suspect wasn't very popular. It also suggested having combined 6th forms. However, the plan now seems to be to build extra accomodation for 6th forms at each school (apart from the Academies), which will cost a lot of money. It is specifically that expenditure that the Lib Dems are now objecting to, rather than the principle of 6th forms (though I certainly remember back in 2010 having a long discussion with a prospective Lib Dem candidate at the door about why the Lib Dems didn't support them).

Akhan: Cllr Eady's statement relates to reports for Nov 14 meeting of the Council's Finance and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee. This was the first chance the Lib Dem councillors had to examine and discuss the Council's plans, particularly the cost of the changes.

Dear All, I am including a message in this thread as it seems to bring together many informed and passionate parents. We are putting together an application for a new primary free school in the area of Mortlake/East Sheen/Barnes aimed at tackling the shortage of places in the Borough (with whom we have been working quite closely). It aims to be academically strong, with physical activity every day and community service in the curriculum (a sort of Duke of Edinburgh for primary). We have just launched our website: www.thomsonhouseschool.org
If you have the time, opportunity and inclination, it would be great to have your thoughts/feedback/questions on this. Thank you! Matteo.

Thanks MrRoss. Did your proposal ever include plans for secondary provision? I'm curious because the council did not mention that there were any primary Free Schools on the horizon in its most recent paper on primary school places. However, in the paper on Secondary School Places it said "There are three proposals in development for free schools to be established within the borough in September 2013 and each would include secondary-phase provision".

So far the only one of those three secondary Free Schools that is publicly campaigning for prospective pupils is the Maharishi Free School. The second could be the Richmond Free School if it revives last year's failed bid. The third has not publicly emerged yet but would have to get their skates on if they wanted to open 2013, as the deadline for their application would be February 24th, and in order to be succesful they would need to provide evidence that they have a sizeable proportion of their first 2-years intake ready and willing to select them as first preference.

Hello BayJay, I know, so little time left! Deadline has been moved by some months!
We are starting at primary and aim to grow into secondary, yes. The expertise of the team spans both sectors. Our bid for 2013 is for a 4-11 school, for this is where the borough has a deficit of places. We have been communicating closely with them since August and last week had a really good meeting there. We very much see ourselves working together with the Borough and - hopefully - becoming part of its family of schools.

We are just starting to advertise our bid now to the wider public. We will be doing some leafleting this week, our website has gone live, we have spoken to the R and T Times, the MP and on Saturday we have our first public meeting at Barnes Sports Club. Unlike the Maharishi, we are doing it on a shoe-string (I did the website myself!)! However, we are already having some successes: we have been selected to be part of the New Schools Network Development Programme for "bids of outstanding potential" - one of only twelve in the UK! - we have just taken on board Anthony Seldon as one of our advisers, and we are starting to develop a Duke of Edinburgh Scheme for primary with the borough! Key now is to get those expressions of interest. Any feedback you might have would be really welcome. All the best, Matteo.

MrRoss, thanks for the info. Do you have an idea of when the extension to a secondary might be? Also, what is your planned admission policy?

Have you chosen the Barnes/Sheen area because it is close to the Harrodian school? Its not the area where lack of primary school places is most acute at the moment, although according to the council "In the medium- to long-term, it is possible that there will be a need to consider additional provision in the East Sheen..... If that is the case, then it would be prudent to investigate the permanent expansion of East Sheen Primary."

The focus on Mortlake/Barnes/East Sheen arose from a discussion had at the Borough, where they told us that at reception, the biggest deficit they were expecting was there. This is why we are looking for potential sites in that area, Mortlake in particular. Once the Stag Brewery relocates and new housing is established there as well, that demand will grow further.
As for a move to secondary: the latest would be when our pupils coming in at Reception get to the transition from year 6 to 7. However, I hope we will have been able to gather enough support from the community, also on the basis of our good work at Thomson House, to be able to establish one well before then.
All the best, Matteo.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about the planned primary school for the Brewery site. That makes sense.

Although, the Brewery closure has been put on hold.