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 ......

I really doubt they would have been able to secure enough time in the High Court for the hearing and have got the judgment by September.

Are there any statistics yet on how full the secondary schools are for September 2012 and which primary schools the children getting into each school are coming from? I seem to remember someone saying a couple of months ago that they hadn't been released yet but it must be pretty firm by now given that they have had the primary induction day this week. I can't see anything on the LB Richmond website.

Some interesting things in the June admission forum minutes - lots of absences for a start. The next education committee meeting is 24 July (in school holidays!) so presumably there will also be an agenda in a week or two.

Lottie, last year they published the offer data in April, and the take-up data in November. So far they haven't published this year's offer data but it may be published for the July scrutiny meeting.

They don't publish individual school transfer data. However, sometimes individual schools publish the information on their own websites.

"I really doubt they would have been able to secure enough time in the High Court for the hearing and have got the judgment by September"

I assume the Diocese will proceed with the starting the building work, opening their admissions etc, on the basis that the council's decision will be upheld. If they hold back on that it would display a lack of confidence in the outcome.

Perhaps CopthallResident can confirm, but when I drove past Clifden Road the other day there were lots of vehicles parked on the field, suggesting that they are starting to partition the site already.

Use Of Clifden Road Site (24 May 2012) says ' . . The purchase of the site . . is expected to be completed by the end of June 2012.' But no lease has yet been agreed, I think. Nor has the purchase price been made public for some reason, though all councillors know it. So the vehicles probably are those of council staff and their advisers.

"probably are those of council staff and their advisers"

They looked more like vans and lorries to me, and the sort of trailers that builders take tea breaks in. But then I was driving at the time, so didn't get a good look.

Could have been a film crew I suppose.

I doubt any school can by pass the London wide rules for application in state system. But then there is no guarantee that Council will not try to bend the rules again for this Catholic VA school

Bayjay They looked more like film crew, ample provision of salubrious looking loos and catering etc. (perhaps fiming "An Education II" Lynn Barber lived at No 54 Clifden Road opposite the school and her mother taught there) but then maybe Catholic building sites have a special ethos .... All there has been on the planning front is an application from the college to put portacabins in to use for teaching to free up the main buildings for a school, they said a planning application related to the school will follow. It was turned back on the basis that they needed formal planning permission. And a first salvo from the residents to make sure that the planning conditions already in place for the college on traffic, parking etc will be imposed on whoever follows has gone unacknowledged and unanswered for a month......

So in their shoes I would have co-operated with RISC to get a judgement in time for September. Time is not a renewable resource, particularly in politics. Doesn't surprise me, in my experience when Lawyers take the reins they will try anything to win so won't see any problem with using the threat of a prolonged and expensive legal process to intimidate RISC. It will be for Lord True to provide the "bottomless public purse" and PR machine to manage the damage........

The council's strategy may be to drag the legal proceedings out as long as possible so that the school is ready to open, and children allocated places, before any decision is made. They may be banking on the unlikelihood of the judge preventing the school from opening in those circumstances, even if it is proven that they've acted unlawfully.

Plus that would also help them to paint RISC as the villain of the piece, as they have tried to do all along.

Heliview - It would be morally repugnant for the Council and Diocese to do so. I hope they respect the law of the land, even though they have not bothered about local community cohesion and shown that by "hook or crook" they will set up a Catholic VA school.

The Council web page New Catholic schools in Richmond upon Thames
says: . . Next steps: The Council will be working with the Diocese to draw up the requisite legal agreements and to agree the details of the partnership working that will be needed in regard to matters such as the administration of admissions, local commissioning arrangements, etc.

So no lease has been signed yet - nor will be, I think, until the judicial review is finished.

Lord True is quoted in today's RTT (not yet online) at the end of a piece covering RISC's press release:

"The council will defend this local decision against any legal action confidently and vigorously, seeking costs against any challenger. I ask those contemplating such action to ask the British humanists [sic] to respect localism and local choice and to reflect that every penny spent on lawyers would be money lost to spend on the education of all young people in the borough. That, we all agreee, is the paramount objective. Every month spent in the courts would also be a month lost to preparing new schools for hundreds of local children"

No mention of the fact that they've refused to limit the costs or co-operate in speeding things up. Like I said, they're hoping to paint RISC/BHA as the villains. Hopefully the judge will be unimpressed.

A much more respectable position would be "we're confident that we've interpreted this ambiguous and nationally significant law correctly and are looking forward to proving that in the courts. We too would like to see costs limited and the process expediated, so we will do whatever we can to cooperate with that".

Helliview I think Lord True needs you to be his assertive PR person! He shoots himself in the foot with that comment quoted as it is at the end of an article that makes it clear that RISC are seeking to expedite proceedings and limit costs, and the Council refusing. It sounds as if what matters to Lord True is using his "bottomless public purse" defending his plans for his empire, rather than the interests of Richmond's children.

Well they are one person down in the PR department at the moment, so perhaps the strain is beginning to show.

All the trailers etc have now disappeared from the Clifden College Car Park. This is the [http://idoxwam.richmond.gov.uk/WAM/doc/Correspondence-1236488.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=1236488&location=&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=12&appid=1001 correspondence] related to the latest state of play on planning as far as the Planning Department appear to be informed (since they are asking the College what is going on). Interesting that they will start out in the rather delapidated buildings behind the old school, not the best shop front for the new school but you can see why the College would want to keep old school buildings for their activities as long as they remain there.

Sorry, this is the link

What respect does Lord True has for localism and local choice ? He knows the Borough is split on the issue of Catholic school - one of the most controversial debates this borough ever had.
All he seems to care is for Catholic votes that he believes are more than votes of those wanting inclusive school.

Helliview Is Lord True trying to keep up with the Camerons? No true blue leader should be without their Andy Coulson......

JoTwick Catholic voters (after all most local Catholics know most Catholic parents will still try to get into the established schools) or his Catholic friends in high places?

2 of the Catholic school speakers at the Council meeting were the big guns from the Diocese of Westminister - they are not local to our borough. This is Lord True and his hypocritical pontification of localism ?

Also, Paul Barber, the Diocesan Director of Education who was one of those speakers, is a barrister with a specialism in Education law. I suspect it is his interpretation of the new Education Act that is driving the council forward so forcefully on this.

To be fair to Paul Barber he was a lot more honest about the nature of the need for Catholic School places in West London than many of the local campaigners , admitting it would be a matter of years (and he couldn't say how many ) before Richmond Catholics would be denied places in Catholic Schools outside the borough and that the increased need for new places would actually be in Ealing.

Having a friend in Lord True solved the problem for them since a new school here will free up places elsewhere to meet that need. And now he gives them access to public money to fight off the challenge to the way in which the Catholic Church has been getting new Catholic schools delivered, this is after all a national, not a local issue, and a law that needs clarifying, we are just the battleground.

Lord True doesn't seem to have much regard for localism when it comes to the people of Twickenham, whether it is providing school places, permitting high rise stations when they came to power on the promise they wouldn't or planning a multi storey Car Park by the station (latest delight he has slipped into the Twickenham plan, after the consultation, he must have friends in NCP as well!!)

Local Tory newsletter celebrates the fulfilment of election manifesto to have a Catholic school. There was no commitment in their manifesto to create a Catholic VA school and that also as a priority on the first available site.

Perhaps a closed door deal was done with Catholics, but there was no mandate from the rest of the electorate. For all that big talk about localism - will Lord True take moral responsibility for misleading the public on their manifesto commitment ?

Campaigners push ahead with Catholic school challenge reports the RTT's website; it includes this explanatory sentence missing from Friday's print version:

Risc and BHA argued the Government?s new Education Act required any council needing a new school to first consider proposals for an academy or free school, which can enrol a maximum of 50 per cent of pupils based on religion.