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 ......

muminlondon I take your point that some of this behaviour stems from affluence, but some of these treatments are paid for by the NHS, and my point exactly is that this sort of partying is far removed from the majority of our teenagers lives, whatever schools they go to. However it isn't Cider that they drink in the Parks and on the greens, it is Vodka, in fizzy drinks bottles and they do smoke weed and there are the inevitable consequences sexually. And there are pupils at Orleans, Waldegrave, Teddington and Oratory to my knowledge who are involved. In fact I know of a boy at Teddington who was taken out (though it was reaching the stage where he was going to be excluded) by desperate parents and sent off to Boarding School and a boy at Oratory who was excluded for taking tabs (MDMA) into school, and then went to Wimbledon College . Any parent of teenagers who thinks this sort of thing doesn't go on in all schools is being dangerously naive (and you only have to go for walk through the recreation grounds, parks and greens on a summer's evening to see it for yourself!) The trouble is that these "cool" kids can make it dangeously seductive and even sensible teenagers can get sucked in. I have always felt it was really important that I talked to my teenagers about it and that they knew that I had to know exactly where they were in the evening and that drinking in the park was totally forbidden.

I do have faith in a mixed ability and diverse intake balancing such extremes of behaviour, nonetheless - managed well, it goes without saying, by a school that values all its pupils (again, impossible to know from league tables). We can give advice to our children but it's a relief when they figure it out for themselves.

The Catholic VA schools have advertised for teaching jobs. www.tes.co.uk/job/principal-89298/. The Council's secondary school admissions brochure for Sep 2013 admissions includes St Richard Reynolds Catholic Secondary School and it is stated that the school will have a policy of inclusivity - what a disingenuous claim! What next perhaps they will apply for 2013 inclusivity award ??
accordcoalition.org.uk/2012/09/14/accord-coalition-launches-2013-inclusivity-award/

RISC report to supporters that they still don?t have a date for judicial review; they have received the Council?s "detailed grounds" for rejecting their claim, one of the formal steps in the process. It's a 92 page document including:

their legal argument by Clive Lewis QC;
a detailed witness statement by Nick Whitfield, the Council's Director of Education, with a letter from the Department for Education.

They are working on their response.

Interesting to see Rutlish - a boys' comprehensive in Merton - has done really well this year. 74% including English and Maths. It certainly bucks the trend. Compare that with Wimbledon College (VA Catholic boys) at 56%. Interesting mumsnet thread about this a couple years ago.

Does anyone know why Richmond doesn't have a boys' school? There must have been one at some point, but who made the decision to close it and when?

"There must have been one at some point"

Yes, there was. Its now called Teddington School! It didn't close, just started to admit girls.

p.s. There's a local schools timeline on the Twickenham Museum website which might be of interest.

I remember the days of Teddington being a boys school - it was always referred to as "Broom Road" and was a secondary modern as the boys who passed the 11+ went to Hampton Grammar School as it was then known. Hampton Grammar went private when Richmond went comprehensive in about 1974 and Broom Road was then a boys comprehensive for a while. Not sure when it started letting girls in but there was a big imbalance for years due to the Waldegrave effect. I think it must be approaching 50:50 for the first time now due to the fact that girls from Teddington and Hampton Wick can't get into Waldegrave any more and there are a lot more of them now anyway.

The Teddington cyberways have started buzzing with talk about the NPL hosting Turing House School. General view seems to be that the building is a tad small for over 1000 teenagers but the sports facilities are underused during the daytime in term time. Plus the usual stuff about parking and traffic from the Queens Road/Admiralty Way.

So a boys' school before Keira Knightly went there! You're right that boys/girls now roughly equal - it says in this head of sixth form advert. I'm getting the impression more boys go private in the borough than girls.

BTW St Richard Reynolds now has a page on the Diocese website.

I wonder how many LBruT Catholics will apply for St Richard Reynolds, or whether the majority stick with the tried and tested out-of borough RC options.

The sibling criteria is such that anyone out-of-borough getting a place in 2013 will be unlikely to get siblings in if the school takes off with LBRuT parents.

"General view seems to be that the building is a tad small for over 1000 teenagers"

Hi Lottie. Check out the updated site page which says: "We're naming Building 2 as the main building of interest, but there are other old NPL buildings that could be incorporated, if appropriate agreement was reached with the landlord, and there is potentially space for some new buildings too."

Hi All - I read the RTT article on improvement in our primary school results. 90% of our borough pupils got 90% Level 4 60% level 5 in Eng and Maths.

Keen to get views from others on their experiences and insights on what does that mean for setting Achievement and standard targets for pupils at secondary level.

How many pupils should be realistically expected to make 4 levels of progress at secondary level. What are the best practices for monitoring progress and target setting year by year.

Thanks for your insights

London school place 'crisis': Burgeoning population pressures and inaccurate population data means one in ten London children will be without a school place by 2015/16, a Labour Party fringe event was told last night. . . leader of Lambeth LBC, Cllr Steve Reed, said this year?s Census figures showed London?s population has been historically undercounted, and London has been underfunded as a result . .

A link to a press release has just been tweeted (at 11.23pm!) by @LBRuT:

Secretary of State for Education confirms Council decision on Catholic Schools is lawful

In a significant development in the legal battle, the Secretary of State for Education (i.e. the Department for Education) has intervened in the case, in support of the Council. And the Council has followed up with a press release in which Lord True makes an outrageous attack, full of untrue and misleading statements. RISC response www.richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk/files/view/press-releases/RISC_response_to_Council_Press_Release-_3_Oct_2012.pdf

RISC original press release (before they had seen the Council?s): www.richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk/files/view/press-releases/Press_Release_-Richmond_Inclusive_Schools_Campaign-_5_Oct_2012.pdf

RISC write to supporters re the timing of the Judicial Review hearing:

. . Because of the end October deadline for applications for Sep 2013 secondary school places, we asked the court to expedite the proceedings, and that was agreed by the judge who gave permission for the Judicial Review to go ahead. But we have still not been given a hearing date. As the minimum notice period is 2 weeks, it?s looking increasingly unlikely that a decision will be made before the end of October. We?re now picking up rumours that applications to the schools are lower than expected, not only because of the uncertainty over the court case, but also because - if the Catholic VA secondary school goes ahead ? it will open in sub-optimal accommodation on the site . .

I heard the schools were planning to hold an open day at the site on Saturday 20 October. The admissions department would know more about that - it might be enlightening.

So if very few local Catholic families have made the secondary school first choice this year and it's half empty because they are carrying on going to Gumley House/Gunnersbury/private will the places go to local non-Catholic children from the Twickenham and Teddington area who didn't choose it or will those children still have to go further afield to a school that they didn't choose so it can be filled with Catholic children from Ealing who probably didn't even choose it either?!

Bullying tactics from Lord True very unpleasant and I hope RISC will ignore him.

From LBRuT website

Open morning
The Diocese will be holding an open morning for the two schools between 9am and 1pm on Saturday 20 October 2012, at the Clifden Road site.

I agree Lord True's bullying tactics are vicious, and don't reflect well on him or his cabinet.

Gove's intervention is interesting. If you take the view that he's the 'education boss' and his interpretation of the law trumps everyone else's then it's significant. However, the Education Act was written and debated and amended by a large collective of people. The result is ambiguity, which needs to be clarified by an independent judge. Gove can't come along now and say "ah yes, but this is what I intended it to mean" and expect the judge to accept that. If the legislation had been worded as per Gove's interpretation I'm sure it would have been challenged vigorously before it became law, and may have been amended.

Lord True's rhetoric really is getting ridiculous. I did think he had Churchillian illusions but he is sounding more like Ian Paisley. It really isn't appropriate from a "Leader" in a borough where these sorts of debates have largely been conducted in a tolerant manner with both sides trying to understand the others point of view . He however has gravitated to the extreme.

There is still no sign of any work being done on the site, and the car park is as full as ever so it is hard to see how it is going to cater for College students and builders. Are they going to disengenuously hold the open day in the old school building? The buildings behind where the school is actually going to be based are pretty grotty. The Head may not even be in post either.

I have certainly heard that at St James's and St Elizabeth's the parents are understandably going for the traditional options. However haven't the diocese changed the admissions criteria so that their chances of getting into the other schools will have worsened (aside from Oratory which is a ballot independent of distance or Parish)? I would have thought in the interests of fairness the diocese will only offer borough children places in out of borough schools if there is spare capacity and certainly couldn't defend sending Ealing children here.

I think more likely that the plan will be to fill the school with non Catholic children to get it established, until it is in a position to win the confidence of Catholic parents. Unfairness to non Catholics not being an issue....

No, Hounslow's Catholic schools still have quotas for Richmond children - see 2013 admissions criteria. In fact, Gumley has increased its numbers and Gunnersbury has increased the quota for Mortlake so there are more places than last year. I make it up to 155 places and there's always the relaunched St John Bosco's in Wandsworth.

If it's 'bad law' because it's ambiguous, then it reflects badly on Michael Gove and there have been too many cock-ups recently for more adverse national publicity (Ebaccs without piloting, legal challenges on GCSES grades, etc). A judge needs to assess the impact or we'll never know. Particularly if it means LAs have no power to set up schools unless it's run by a church or mosque.

If the judge finds in the council's favour, I'd be interested to know if Catholics outside Richmond (ChippyMinton?) would perceive unfairness if Richmond pupils continued to be favoured by quotas in Hounslow.

Even if Gove is right on Sec 11, I dont think that effects the outcome of this case. What RISC is challenging is the fact that Council all throughout said there was need for Catholic schools. They only changed their language after finding itself in the legal mess.
If all Councils are allowed to twist their statements to cheat the law, we will only have VA schools. Is that really what the new Education bill says ?

Gove support for Catholic school is the lead story in today's RTT.

Slightly off-topic. I know people on this thread often ask for school-level transfer data, which is only available piecemeal via individual school websites. For info, here is a new link to Trafalgar's transfer data for 2011/12.