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 ......

Hear Hear Copthall , Lottie and Twix ! Well Said! I too am shocked and angry at how this issue is progressing with such a HUGE disregard for the majority of local children.

The councils OWN figures just "assume" there will be a free school in 2013, how crazy is that???
So, obviously Inclusive school places must be needed THEN, not later. Duh !
All the info I have read from the Council has been so biased it is very shocking. There is no justification for putting one minority's "preference" above other childrens' needs!! How could there ever be?

I am VERY curious what is the odd legal reason that was reported at the start of the meeting, to allow the Diocese representative to stay and vote??

I get the point that most people there already had a decided view before but how on earth legally was he permitted to stay ??

If he didn't have a prejudicial interest then when does anyone ever have one???
I know you say Bayjay to not discuss those who aren't here to defend themselves- I agree with you but I am questioning the process not the person.

I would like to find out from the council Democratic Services as you suggest, and I plan to contact the council's monitoring officer, I really want more info on this as I feel very strongly this was VERY wrong. I will do some more research tomorrow but if anyone can point me in the right direction let me know.

Finally, It seems very convenient that it is a 'NEED' for a Catholic school one minute when it suits the Council, then it becomes a 'WANT' another time just to suit a different arguement!! How convenient, to change so obligingly!

It is neither want or need, but a ridiculous out-dated idea by an utterly biased Council for their own small selfish self-interested group. Shocking.

I have been following this debate since about September of last year, but I lurk rather than post on MN. I have however just registered as I just can't let some of the things that are being said her today go without challenge...

A Catholic school has been promised for years, by both Liberal Democrats and Conservatives because so many Catholic children leave the borough each and every year.
Yes, some of them may end up attending their closest out of borough Catholic school but for MANY they will have really long journeys. My two sons have a journey of 1 hour and 45 minutes to school every day. Not because we have chosen a particular school, but because we were not allocated our closest Catholic secondary (St Marks) - this would still have been about a 40 minute journey.

I can't imagine that anyone travelling from anywhere in Richmond would have a journey of anywhere like 105 mins to a borough school.
If all of the schools in Richmond were deemed to be outstanding then I doubt anyone would be complaining about their travel time to RPA or Hampton or Whitton, indeed many travel already, for example, from Kew or Sheen each day to Waldegrave, because it is an OUTSTANDING SCHOOL!

At the same time many of you have implied that Catholics should 'suck it up' in regards to travel you go on to say that it will not be fair if your children have to do the same.

This is a quality issue, not just a quantity issue and I think that if you are honest with yourselves you will admit to that. There is nothing wrong with wanting the best, but don't try and hide behind 'long journey times'.

We are all different, we all want different things from our schools. I wanted a school for my children where their faith was respected, encouraged and had an opportunity to blossom. Education is far more than the ABC's. Catholic children are Richmond children who have felt ignored for far too long.

I do understand where some of the frustrations of non-Catholics has come from, but for most this comes from not wanting to attend underperforming schools and I understand that. I have spent a lot of time at Whitton School (before it was Twickenham Academy) as an unpaid volunteer in the past -and yes, if it had been a Catholic school I would have sent my children there.

Moving on to the issue of Free Schools, if the Twickenham Free School is approved, then it will be found a site by the Department of Education. If it is not approved then it would not have been able to have the Clifden Road site anyway!

As has been said by many others earlier in this thread, there is a wonderful chance here for all of us to be happy and I struggle to understand why anyone would want to deny that.

I will leave you now to rip my post apart, you are all far more elequent than me, but that does not, necessarily mean that you are right.

Councils has always said that there is need for Catholic schools and consultation was based on that. So were we consulted on need and not want

JustJoined, I partly agree with you (and wouldn't rip your post apart even if I didn't)

I think that both the entrance criteria for Catholic and Community schools are unfair because they don't give everyone who would like their child to attend the school an equal chance to do so.

I think the Catholic school entrance criteria are unfair because they give preference to one religious group. Wandering slightly off topic I particularly don't like the way that at primary school level non Catholic siblings don't get priority as this can cause real problems for parents of this age group having to manage two drop offs and pick ups. Often the non Catholic parents haven't chosen the school either but have been assigned it after a bulge class was added.

However I think that the sense of unfairness expressed on this forum is disproportionate given that the proposed alternative is admission based on distance.

Given that secondary school aged children can easily make a bus journey (I seem to remember it being quite fun when I was at school) why should parents get priority for a school just because they happen to live close to a suitable site for a secondary school when one is started or have enough money to buy/rent their way in where a school is already established?

It seems to me that most people's definition of fair, just comes down to will my child get into this school or not?

Personally I think that a lottery based system would be fairest but I can't imagine it ever being popular because it would remove the option to improve your child chances of attending a good school through buying/renting/church attending.

So given that the status quo of distance or faith based admissions is not likely to change any time soon I would like to see the Catholic school offering more places to non Catholics and the proposed Twickenham Free school offering some places to children in other parts of the borough

Nicole12, I can understand your point of view. What is unacceptable about this Catholic school is its 100% exclusive admissions - if it had had a similar open places policy to Christ's that might have been a fairer compromise. Any discussion of that in the meeting?

I think perhaps you are right that many of those in e.g. Sheen or Kew would have become interested if there was another secondary option they had a chance of.

Another voice we have not really heard on this thread is support for the Swedish academies. Why, when the LibDems set them up, did they not also consider a wider catchment area considering that it is a niche methodology? Do we know in what consortia they are going to organise their very small sixth forms, by the way?

Just joined I take your points but this is no longer just a debate about quality, because catchment areas have shrunk, will shrink more once the link system goes and and will shrink more when the pupil bulge comes through. And just as there are people who chose to travel to Waldegrave (but actually now n most of Central Twickenham, and certainly Shene and Kew, won't get in because they are outside the two catchments, priority and secondary. www.richmond.gov.uk/waldegrave_admissions.pdf ) there are even more who choose to travel to Oratory, I never heard any of my daughter's boyfriends complain about the journey, and I spent a lot of time with them in cars taking my turn transporting them from Carsholton, Hampstead and beyond in the wee small hours...

But what is proposed is that parents will have no choice but for a long journey to Shene, and that might well mean a 15/ 20 min walk/ busride to the station, then they have to get through the police patrolled Richmond College scrum to the platform, a 15 min train ride and 20 min walk / bus ride at the other end to a school that isn't local. If you volunteered at Whitton I am sure you understand the implications.

muminlondon One of the members of the committee did indeed suggest that they should be allowed to vote on an option which suggested 50% admissions but that was dismissed, they were only allowed to vote on the VA exclusive proposals. I don't think that would have changed the outcome , if the Vineyard governor had then felt able to vote again ( and many Vineyard parents feel very let down by how she didn't vote) the Conservative Chairman would still have had the casting vote, unless of course the diocean representative had felt as Beverley Saunders did that even though he was a volunteer, as she is, he had a prejudicial interest... But then as magic says it is all predetermined because at Cabinet they will vote on party lines. You really don't sense when communicating with individual Councillors that they think the issue is as totally cut and dried as all the reports and votes suggest but for the sake of their political futures they have to do what they are told...

One thing we can take from this is that the Free School team are acting not just with passion but with the utmost integrity and that bodes well for our community's children, if they get funding and a good site near the heart of our community.

And Nicole 12 I understand the admissions policy of the free school for Central Twickenham is likely not just to be on distance but aimed at getting a representative cross section of our community. It might not help if you want your child to schlep over from Shene but it won't help if you pay squillions to live in my house ;-) (I should shut up and just take the money whichever way it goes shouldn't I!)

Just to say Copthall resident (as I hear your concern about a potential train journey to RPA and overcrowding at the station.)As an alternative it is also possible to reach using the 33 bus in a similar time. From King street it is about a 35 minute journey and then a 7 minute walk the other end. I used to get that bus every day when I worked on the other side of the borough and lived in Twickenham. I travelled too with many girls making the journey to Waldegrave from there and it wasn't a bad journey.

However I do genuinly hope that with the potential of new free schools, the proposed catholic secondary and the planned new community school in Egerton road that there will be other options closer to home for everyone across the borough.

The promoters of the free school for Central Twickenham report: . . as free school proposers we are not in a position to enter any negotiations over sites. That process is handled by a Government Agency after approval. We were required to express a preference for a site in our application. We named Clifden Road as an obvious first choice as it already has a viable school building on it, and may have been available. We also named an exciting second choice, but we haven?t published details of that because we don?t yet know if it is viable, and the information may be commercially sensitive. Of course we will send out more information as soon as we can.

. . They must wait until July or August to find out if their application has been successful and the Twickenham Free School can open in September 2013.

Just a quick note to those worried about the difficult journey to RPA from Twickenham. Catch the 33 bus. It's easy, pleasant and free. Why not admit its about the quality of RPA and not the journey.

Well done for my fellow Catholics who refrain from giving a rise to all the insults to our faith and need of a Catholic secondary on this thread.

Lets calm it down everybody. I know feelings are running high, but lets continue to respect everyone else's viewpoints.

noUggscuse - nobody is insulting your faith here. The debate is about school admissions, not faith.

In the last 24 hours it has been called selfish, self interested, etc. not offensive? Really?

noUggscuse, the faith hasn't been called those names. Just the admission policy. Its a sensitive issue, and its very easy for people to try and dismiss other people's views by calling them "anti faith". That is what the council tried to do at the start of the debate. Most people, including the council, now recognise that the debate is about admissions only.

NoUggscuse, I am a fellow catholic but also a Risc supporter, most people involved are certainly not anti-faith, but anti-faith schools with 100% faith based admissions. It is absolutely a question of quality, but on both sides. Whilst on this forum there are some committed and practising Catholics my experience with my own family, friends and neighbours is that they are using religion to access good schools and soon abandon church going/choir singing/volunteering once a school place is gained. St Catherine's, the private Catholic school in Twickenham has open admissions and good bursaries for disadvantaged children and seems to me a perfect example of how any new faith school should be run. It is the fact that the proposed school seems to want to actively avoid a mixed intake in line with new regulations which is upsetting so many people here.

I think trust in the Council is plummeting amongst large number of parents. I was talking to a group of mums in Teddington last night who have young children and live in roads that have always been within the Collis Primary school catchment area 5 mins walk from the school. All of the four year olds in those roads (at least 10) have no offer of a primary school place at all this Autumn for the first time ever due to the rise in births and demand in the state system. This isn't about them being too posh for Stanley: the Council is telling them it has no idea where their kids are going to go to school. Yet they see the Council putting its efforts and £15 million of their council tax into a school that their children and 90% of other children will never be able to go to. These are also families who also want the best for their children and have struggled to buy a small house in what they thought was a location that would ensure they got a place at a local school that they could walk to before getting on the train to work etc. Not much to ask. Basic needs for everyone have to be met before we create bastions of privilege for the few using limited public money. I can't understand why the Catholics behind this school idea don't accept that and realise the damage they are doing to the broader cause of Catholicism by pressing on with a plan that is causing more anti-Catholic feeling than I ever would have dreamed of in an area like LB Richmond.

Bay Jay I sadly do have to agree with the feelings of Nouggscuse. I think comments such as :-
Why would anyone want to work with the Catholic Church after the selfish and uncaring way it has behaved towards future generations of Twickenham children?

are deeply hurtful and do cast a punch at the Catholic faith. Now I know that in that case it was a mum that was upset speaking and so as far as i am concerned that is gone. But let us please acknowledge feelings on both sides

Now on a more positive note I am absolutely delighted to hear your exciting news of another potential site for the Free school. That is wonderful and I wish you well with it!

Just to say yesterday in all the debate we forgot to welcome Justjoined. So Justjoined welcome and thank you for sharing your thoughts and expereinces with us all. I know it does take courage to stand up and say what you believe and I think all of us have deep respect for you for doing this. I am so sorry to hear about the awful journey your boys do to school every day, thank you so much for sharing that and for trying to make a difference for others.

Mir4, thanks for your good wishes.

I know it might seem pedantic when you're on a different side to the argument, but criticism of the Catholic Church (in this case specifically the Diocese of Westminster) is not the same thing as criticism of the Catholic faith or criticism of Catholics in general. There is a very big difference.

However, I would ask everyone (on both sides) to be careful with their use of language, because one hasty comment misinterpreted can cause a lot of unnecessary damage to otherwise powerful arguments.

Hear Hear Bay Jay, we must all remain polite even with feelings running high, but it is most definately the admissions policy of this proposed catholic school that IS in everyway you can look at it, selfish, as it provides for one self-interest group only. That is a fact.

As was said eariler it is shocking that non-catholic siblings in a familiy whose child has to accept a Catholic school place, possibly as it is the only one available, will then be prioritised lower than new Catholic families to the school. How could a Mum manange collecting a 5 yr old from one school and a 6 yr old from another at the same time?? crazy.
That is a selfish and stupid admission policy.

It is so easy to cry 'anti-faith' but I have no problem with anyone practising their own faith but don't ask for state funding to help pass it on to your child.

If there was a school that said (1) "No Catholics Allowed" there, would be quite rightly an outrage!!

And yet in these Modern times it is permissible to Say (2) " No non-Catholics allowed" as a actual real-life admission policy!

Clearly both would be total Discrimination. Difference is no one is ever suggesting the first one!

I have many Catholic Friends who are against this school proposal. They were raised in Catholic Families but they don't schools to be based on what their parents do on a Sunday morning.

France and Italy I believe manage very well with tolerant and happy catholic Communities without state funding and segregated schooling. To segregate children based on parents beliefs is unfair and will always be unfair.

What if a child of eleven has decided he disagreed with his parents faith?

Say he decides he does not want to go to a Catholic School, but his parents attend church and get the forms filled in by priest.

Then he will be sent to the new School against his wishes! Crazy.

Children are not blind robots who follow their parents blindly so the council should not support parents who want to decide their childrens own views for them but the Council should support non-discriminatory, fair Schools.

If France and Italy don't "need" State Catholic schools then of course WE DO NOT either

I am still very shocked why a Catholic representative did not opt out of the meeting. NO-one can answer my question earlier: If he was not biased when does it ever apply??

TwoCotBeds

I find your tone really difficult to manage if I am honest. I will try and answer some of your points, not because, for one minute I think I can change your mind, but because there may be more lurkers (like JustJoined) on this thread and I would like them to see some alternative points of view.

You try and present things as fact ? you are articulate, but JustJoined is right, that does not mean that you are correct.

The lines between fact and opinion seem to be blurred, mainly because, for both sides we can support our argument with statistics and evidence that is not supported by ?the other sides?.

You are right when you say that the admissions policy is geared towards Catholic families. This is because there is no other Catholic secondary school in the borough. If there were, if Richmond Catholic children had another school here that met their needs I don?t think for one minute that the admissions policy would be as is proposed. But, there is no other school.

Where you are wrong is that the school says ?no non-Catholics allowed?. This would be illegal. If there is space, Catholic schools should and do welcome children of all faiths (and none). But why would a Catholic school turn away Catholic children just because a ?quota? of Catholics had been reached?

You keep saying it is ?selfish? but I don?t see it as selfish to want my children to be educated in-borough.
1:7 primary schools in this borough are Catholic; I do not see why it should be an issue for 1:9 or indeed 1:10 secondary schools to be so.

You however clearly are against all forms of state funding for faith schools. That is your right, but here, in the UK state funding for faith schools exists and is supported by the majority of parents.

I could argue (given that the council have clearly said that to have a community school on the Clifden Road site now would be detrimental to the parents throughout the borough who will continue to have no choice but to attend one of the academies) that those parents in the vicinity of central Twickenham are being selfish. I think that many people are scared about the prospect, if they do not get into Orleans, of having to attend one of the academies.
As has been said earlier, this is a quality issue. Many parents are working hard to try and improve the educational outcomes for all of the children in this borough.

I do however agree with you that, if non-Catholic children are allocated a Catholic school, then the sibling policy should extend to them in future years. I can see that it would be incredibly difficult to manage multiple primary school-runs.
I don?t think that you would find many Catholic families disagreeing with you on this point.

In terms of what happens with an 11 year old, well I guess that there will be as many differences of opinion in Catholic families as in non-Catholic families.
My father made the choice of school for me based on the information that was available to him at the time. I absolutely wanted to go to the local comp ? he was having none of it and I travelled across my town to what my father thought was a better school. Non-faith by the way and not in this area.
Some families will be guided by the preferences of their children when choosing secondary schools. Others will make the decisions for their children. These dilemmas are the same in (for example) Humanist families as they are in Catholic families. Would you not agree?
My friend wanted her daughter to go to Waldegrave, her daughter wanted Orleans as this was where her best friend was going. As far as I am aware she will start Waldegrave in September. These debates go on in all families.

Now, for your final point ? again going back to Andy Cole.
It was no surprise that Andy supports Catholic schools. Just as it was no surprise that those parent governors who were known to support Risc did not support a Catholic school.
Andy is the representative of Southwark, not Westminster.

He has not drawn up the proposals nor is he party to any information that is not in the public domain.
He took legal advice, not only from the Local Authority, but also from the Diocese of Southwark prior to coming to his decision to remain in the meeting.

His position is very different from that of Beverly Saunders as she is a Director of the NFS4T. She will be party to information which is not in the public domain. She has a vested interest in the outcome. Andy Cole supports the school, but has no vested interest. He has nothing personal to gain.

I think it's certainly very true that people are worried about the quality of many of the borough's secondary schools, but I don't think you can discount the very real problem that families are already encountering at primary level of getting ANY place at all. You only need to have met one person going through this trauma to understand why so many people are genuinely terrified of going through it all again when their children reach secondary school.

I still can't quite get my head around at a time of recession and rising birth rates that our council's education department is prioritising its spending on a "want" rather than a "need"!

On the subject of inclusive admission policies, lottery systems really mustn't be the way forward. Parents of the most disadvantaged children will be much more likely to choose their local school, so will apply to the school on their doorstep even though it might be the worst. Equally more affluent families will look elsewhere such as private schooling if they are allocated a poor school (as already happens). The result would be that the highly regarded schools can only become more polarised in their intake. Even worse, a proportion of the disadvantaged children on the doorsteps of these schools won't get in. These children can often have poor attendance anyway, imagine the result of trying to send them half way across the borough! The only solution can be to ensure both sensible mixed housing policies as well as working towards a greater uniformity in standards of all the schools.

Well done No uggscuse, Mir 4 etc. Lets make the debate about the emotional and personal and avoid addressing the rational. Actually I am feeling pretty emotional myself today because one Steve Joyce, I do hope he is on here, was clearly far too busy humming U2 to himself to listen to a word of the carefully composed and rehearsed and nervously given, case that I put forward on Tuesday, not one word of my argument was written from a Humanist perspective, indeed I think I made it pretty clear I am not anti Catholic because I married one, yet he has decided to lump all six of the diverse group of speakers against the school as a "bunch of humanists" in his letter to RTT. I have great respect for Humanists, the ones I have met have been very principled people and one delivered a fantastically moving and healing service for my Catholic friend who lost her Jewish husband. However I am not, and actually what I am, apart from a parent who has been through the trauma the Borough of Richmond subjects it's parents to, is irrelevent. What it does show is that some Catholics just are not prepared to listen to anyone else's views, to empathise with the fact that without the additional choices that Catholics already have many parents in this borough have found themselves, or face finding themselves, at primary and secondary level, without school places that are reasonably local, and not categorised by Ofsted as failing their pupils, and that is why they are angry to see one group priviledged with exclusive school places. Instead they choose to think we are all rabidly and irrationally anti Catholic!

Back to the rational. Actually the Sheen parents I know of girls who went to Waldegrave did think that journey was hard on their daughters, it wasn't just the 33 (whose secret in doing the journey in 35 mins in rush hour I need to know since I allow 20 minutes each just for the Richmond Bridge and Clifford Avenue bottlenecks) but fighting with the Hampton and Mall boys and LEH girls to get on the inadequate R70 (they don't walk not even from the Sussex Arms!). They wouldn't have that option now anyway, the catchment has shrunk back to Manor Road. However it is an entirely different thing to decide that a journey is justified by the nature of the school at the other end, be it because of faith, quality or gender, versus the local option of school, and for Richmond Council to decide to inflict that journey on children in order to fill up a school at the other end of the borough until such time that it overcomes the negative perceptions of local residents. For disadvantage pupils that will just add to their problems.

You are right when you say that the admissions policy is geared towards Catholic families. This is because there is no other Catholic secondary school in the borough. If there were, if Richmond Catholic children had another school here that met their needs I don?t think for one minute that the admissions policy would be as is proposed.

What an utterly ridiculous assertion. If there were another Catholic secondary in the borough then the new school proposal would never have been made let alone called for!

The reason for the proposed admission policy is, of course, very simple. It is because there are insufficient desirable places in Twickenham. There is therefore a well founded fear that a new Catholic school might appeal to large numbers of non-Catholics purely to a)avoid the academies; b) not have to pay private fees; or c) move house.

Which is why, although I would very happy to see the provision of a new Catholic secondary school - I believe that provision of sufficient quality community places must come first. And if that were the case then there would be no need to have exclusive admission policies which only serve to undermine the faith.

LittleMrsMuppet - the idea is not to keep out non-Catholics - that in itself is more than ridiculous. It is to try and ensure that Catholic children have a Catholic school, in-borough to attend.

There are a sufficient number of places available. Quality is a different issue and it is why I have consistently said that, if RPA, TA and HA were all seen to be desirable, we would not be having this debate.

MAGIC, you just said "You keep saying it is ?selfish? but I don?t see it as selfish to want my children to be educated in-borough." Er, Actually you already have the option to educate your child in Borough now! There are schools available.

What you are asking for is an EXTRA option of a tailor-made specific School that exactly matches your personal faith, in Borough.

I simply don't understand why you should get that extra option of a specific school, but say, a Jewish or Muslim or Humanist or anyone else has no chance of the same Option? I'd still love an answer to that, as I've asked before.

OK some people such as yourself may think all our children need, very targeted education that matches and supports their parents particular faith, ok but then....... by any rules of logic and fairness,......those same people should support other specific schools eg Jewish, Muslim, Humanist, Atheist also.

How can one be fair without the others? So logically all our children would be divided up, segregated, depending on their parents views. Totally crazy.

I still say it is selfish to demand a specific school dedicated to your own minority......... whilst not recognising lots of other parents have preferences too.
It is like saying YOUR preferences matter but all other parents' preferences do NOT! That is illogical and so unfair.

Lets all demand good quality local schools for our children to learn and develop a community together free from ALL discrimination. We do not 'need' segregation of children or adults.

It is quite possible by the way that, particularly if there is a Judicial Review that the school on the Clifden Road site may not be able to open it's doors before 2014 anyway.

The Free School could be up and running in 2013 on a different site, so you will get your community places first.