New Secondary Schools for Richmond 3

[BayJay]

Hello and welcome to the Mumsnet thread about Richmond Borough Secondary Schools. The discussion started in February 2011 in two parallel locations here and here.

In November 2011 the most active of those two threads, in Mumsnet Local, reached 1000 messages (the maximum allowed) so we continued the conversation here.

Now its May 2012 and that thread has also filled up, so the conversation will continue here ......

Richmond Cabinet approves Catholic VA school proposals as expected.(Webcast recording as posted by BayJay available from tomorrow for those who missed).

JoTwick: it is the process that may be judged unlawful, not the decision. If it is so found, it will be null and void so that the selection of a school for the site will start again. Either there will be a competition to choose an academy or the site will be offered to a free school.

The Tory leadership of the Council will suffer no penalty except embarrassment and ridicule from their opponents.

Thanks Chris. Just saw the latest press release from RISC - so it seems they feel they have lost the battle, but not yet the war.
RISC REACTS TO CABINET DECISION
This has always been an unequal battle. On one side the Council and the Catholic establishment, in the form of Catholic parents seeking a special benefit for their children and taxpayer-funded Catholic schools backed by Catholic churches, all supported from the top by the Dioceses, with their influence at the highest levels of government. On the other side, local parents and other people from all sorts of backgrounds, including some Catholics, with no organisation or resources apart from a campaign that only started in April last year, but all united around the conviction that what the Council is doing is misguided and grossly unfair. Community schools, whose teachers are employed by the Council, felt obliged to remain neutral.

Despite strong points, powerfully made, by the speakers in favour of inclusive schools, the Cabinet decided to go ahead with the exclusive Voluntary Aided Catholic schools. Power, influence and self-interest won the vote, as everyone knew they would.

The Cabinet?s decision followed a recommendation from a meeting of the Education Scrutiny committee the previous week. It was split on the issue. There was a majority of one in support of the Catholic schools because the representative of the Catholic Diocese refused to recognise that he had a ?prejudicial interest?. That is defined by the Council?s constitution as "one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice your judgement of the public interest". Instead of absenting himself, as someone with a prejudicial interest is expected to do, he stayed and voted in favour of the proposals from the Diocese. He then re-appeared as a speaker in favour of the Diocesan proposals at the Cabinet meeting.

But this may not be the end. RISC believes the Council is acting unlawfully under the Education Act 2011, which says that a Council that thinks it needs a new school must seek proposals for a Free School, which the Council has failed to do. The British Humanist Association (BHA) is also interested in this case due to its national implications. Now that the Council's decision has been taken, RISC and the BHA will be meeting shortly with their lawyers to consider next steps.

The Kingston Guardian reports: Uncertainty over funding for Kingston's new secondary school: Parents, children and teachers were waiting to hear if funding for a new secondary school in the borough had been approved. The government announced 261 schools across the country would receive money from a school building fund but had not released details of which of the 587 applications had been successful. A list of 42 schools being prioritised for the cash from the Priority School Building Programme was released but the planned north Kingston secondary school was not one of them, leaving the future of children?s education in the borough uncertain . . The announcement, due on May 25, had been delayed from December 2011.

Nick Whitfield said something yesterday that I was shocked. He said that Kingston was not expected this round of funding . But there is some other source of funding for it. he also said that Hounslow Manor had received funding for rebuilding

Hi concparent. I think he meant that he wouldn't have expected the new Kingston school to be in yesterday's funding announcement, because that was about rebuilding existing schools rather than funding new ones. There's still no confirmed source of funding for it though.

It's good news that Hounslow Manor is being rebuilt. Ofsted have recently rated it as good, and its website confidently declares "Our journey to outstanding has begun ...". Hopefully the rebuild will help them on that journey.

Thanks for clarification but lot of parents do not understand the technicalities and were expecting funding decision yesterday.

What do you think about Nick whitfield commenting he did not want your secondary free school to open now. That would be double dissapointment

NW's always made it clear that he doesn't want a community school to open in 2013, so that remark is consistent.

The official political position of the council is that they will be supportive of free schools, and all NLS4T's meetings with the council have been positive and constructive.

The free school process is (deliberately) independent of councils. It is understandable that council officers are wary of it, because they have no control over it and it potentially disrupts their planning. However, it is the Government's way of providing for the 'wants' of communities as opposed to their 'needs'.

I maybe thick but I do not get this needs v wants . I need my child to get a good quality secondary education . I want my child to get a good quality secondary education.

Both statements look and mean same to me . At one level one could argue education is a need for all . Its not an ice cream debate you have with your 10 old :)

Yes JoTwick, I agree its subtle.

Officially, the council needs to provide everyone with a school place. While there are empty places in some schools the council can legitimately argue that it has fully met its commmunity's needs.

However, they don't need to provide everyone with a school place of their choice. If the rules suddenly changed so that councils had a legal duty to make sure everyone got one of their 6 choices, then Richmond council would not be meeting the needs of 10% of its Year 7 applicants.

Parents want a school of their choice. Councils only need to provide them with a place somewhere within the borough.

Another way of putting it is you need to get your child a secondary education, but you want to get them a good quality secondary education.

V v v v pleased we will get a 6th form

Not one parent I knew was against it!

Its window dressing. I got it yesterday that the catholic parents need a secondary school to get continuity of catholic education in the borough
I did not get the council officers than calling it a want and not a need . Niether did I get their justification for not having the need for new community school. Very dodgy assumptions and lack of rigorous planning and forecast

BayJay - I disagree with yr statement Another way of putting it is you need to get your child a secondary education, but you want to get them a good quality secondary education

I need my child to get a good quality secondary education. Because a bad quality education is very harmful to a childs future.

"I got it yesterday that the catholic parents need a secondary school to get continuity of catholic education in the borough. I did not get the council officers than calling it a want and not a need"

Many Catholic parents would say they need a Catholic Secondary school. However, the council's official line is that Richmond doesn't need a Catholic secondary school (because if it did it would fall foul of the new law that says councils that need a new school must consider an Academy or Free School before a VA school). However, the council say they do want a Catholic secondary school, so will accept the proposal on the table from the Diocese.

RISC would argue that this subtle way of avoiding having to consider an Academy is a breach of the new law, and that is why they're considering a Judicial Review.

Interesting points being made here. The Director said in the scrutiny committee meeting in Nov.
A number of children were currently travelling further than was reasonable to attend a Catholic school. It was the Council?s responsibility to ensure that all children were provided for as equally as possible and a new Catholic School on the Clifden Road site would greatly reduce these travelling distances
The Council's responsibility is admission to need.

"I need my child to get a good quality secondary education. Because a bad quality education is very harmful to a childs future"

I completely agree with you, but the council wouldn't. The council does not need to provide you with a place in a school that is rated Good by Ofsted. They do not even need to provide you with a place that is rated Satisfactory by Ofsted. They only need to provide you with a place, and any place will do. If you then choose to go private or move house, then that's your decision.

Of course they want to improve all of our schools so that they become destinations of choice, and are working hard to achieve that, but it will take time.

The current Government introduced the Free school programme partly because it was frustrated with many councils' attitude towards catering for parental choice.

"The Council's responsibility is admission to need"

Those are the sorts of statements that the Judicial Review will need to look at in detail. Its a new law, and so this will be a test case with national implications.

Cllr Hodgins said yesterday there was a need for Catholic school to meet demand for 13% of population in Catholic primary. The Catholic secondary would cater to only 8%. He even justified it for not going for the 50-50 option as it would accomadate only 4%

"Cllr Hodgins said yesterday there was a need for Catholic school to meet demand for 13% of population in Catholic primary"

Did he use the word "need"? It may have been a slip if he did. Saying there is a demand for a Catholic Secondary is the same as saying there is a want for one. Officially the council would meet the needs of those Catholic primary pupils if it offered them a place at one of the undersubscribed academies (though many Catholic parents would obviously disagree).

The Council also wrote in the Choice and Diversity Paper ^It has been anticipated that the equivalent of two secondary schools (including
one Roman Catholic) will be needed by about 2015 to meet the demand for
places^

So were they lying then, or are they lying now ?

"So were they lying then, or are they lying now?"
Back then they didn't know about the new law. The new law came into force on Feb 1st 2012, and since then they've been more careful with their language.

. . On the legal issue, cabinet paper Use Of Clifden Road Site says:

. . 10.2 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 (emphasis added) in their area, they must seek proposals for an Academy. As set out in paragraphs 4.7 and 4.8 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 . . (emphasis added)

ChrisSquire Fri 18-May-12 18:46:57

So far we were concerned that assumptions were being played with to justify the Councils forecasts. Now words are being played with to justify wants and not needs.Very difficult in these circumstances to believe in " Trust me, I am a professional "

Jeev, if the council's forecasts are correct, then they will have fulfilled their professional duty to provide everyone with the school place that they need.

Built in to those forecasts is the implicit assumption that children will travel from Twickenham (where the need is likely to develop most quickly over the next few years) to Richmond Park Academy (where the greatest surplus of spare places is).

A cynic could paraphrase it as "Trust me, I am a professional. I will offer you a school place. If you don't like it you are welcome to make alternative arrangements. That will allow me to offer the place to someone else, thus putting off the need to create new school places even longer".

However, a non-cynic would trust the council to put sufficient improvements in place at the academies that parents would be happy to be offered places there, and not resent their lack of a choice in the matter.

Only time will tell whether the cynics or the non-cynics will be correct.