New Secondary Schools for Richmond 4

[BayJay2]

Welcome. This is the fourth (or perhaps fifth) in a series of threads about Richmond Secondary Schools.

The discussion was originally triggered by Richmond council's publication of its Education White Paper in February 2011. It started with two parallel threads here and here.

In November 2011 the most active of the original two threads reached 1000 messages (the maximum allowed) so we continued the conversation here.

That thread filled up in May 2012, and was continued here.

It's now November 2012, and once again we're at the start of a new thread ....

I post here, for the record, a paragraph on the history of school funding taken from a letter I've just sent to the RTT; it's taken from various sources:

. . The faith lobby, which, taken as a whole, is hugely over-represented in Parliament, particularly in our unelected House of Lords, easily defeated a proposed amendment to the 2006 Education and Inspections Bill to introduce a compulsory 25 % non-exclusive quota for all new schools. The option to set up a new exclusive school was left in place. The matter was hardly debated at all when the 2011 Education Act, which amended the 2006 Act, went through Parliament.

The public financing of Anglican and Roman Catholic schools stems from the 1902 Education Act; it was bitterly resisted by the nonconformists, particularly in Wales, led by Lloyd George, who denounced it as ?Rome on the rates?. The matter remained unresolved until the Liberal landslide of 1906 swept the Tories from office. The Liberals made a major effort in 1906 to pass the Birrell Educational Bill; it would end public support of religious schools. It passed the Commons but was blocked by the House of Lords. The 1944 Butler Education Act made it easier to set up new exclusive schools, to serve the large Irish population settled here.

Nowadays however very few new Catholic schools are opened; they are nearly all primary schools and in areas where there is a large Catholic population who want them.
...
One source is the Dictionary of National Biography, available through the public library website, which has:

. . The new Education Bill introduced by Arthur Balfour in April 1902 offered Lloyd George new opportunities. While in many ways he approved of the new structure created for primary and secondary education, he led nonconformist resistance to the public financing of Anglican and Roman Catholic schools. He recalled from his own childhood the social resentment provoked among dissenters in Anglican ?single-school areas?.

There was individual passive resistance by nonconformists in England. In Wales, by contrast, Lloyd George seized the initiative by leading a collective revolt by the Welsh county councils which would have to administer the bill; by February 1904 all of them were under Liberal control. He offered a solution by which the act would be operated but on condition that the religious and other demands of nonconformists over the running of the schools be met. Several councils were declared to be in default. There remained an impasse until the autumn of 1905 by which time the Balfour government was in dire straits . .

There is nothing new or surprising or unreasonable about the RISC campaign.

There is nothing new or surprising or unreasonable about the RISC campaign

Of course there isn't. The only thing that's surprising to me is that some people are surprised by it. Oh, and the fact that it's a debate we're still having in 2012.

Of course, little will change until we have some long-overdue House of Lords Reform.

Some more history from the DNB:

Augustine Birrell (1850?1933) . . became president of the Board of Education in 1906. His challenge was to amend the controversial 1902 Education Act, which was deemed by nonconformists and Liberals to favour Church of England elementary schools.

His Education Bill of 1906 was intended to restore equal educational treatment but could satisfy neither the English Anglicans and Irish Catholics in the House of Commons nor the permanent Conservative majority in the House of Lords. It was withdrawn after its inevitable mutilation in the upper house, but the delicate negotiations between rival religious denominations demonstrated his superb skills as an adept diplomat and sensitive conciliator, reinforced by his tolerance and humour . .

Free school in row over plans to scrap religious education (Telegraph Dec 02):

The Bristol Primary School decided to drop RE from the curriculum because parents it consulted thought it would be a ?waste of time?, according to its headteacher. The school, which will open next year in the St Paul?s area of Bristol, has marketed itself to families on the basis that RE and sex education have been scrapped. A statement by the school explains:

No religion will be taught in the school. The governors feel and parents have told us that places of worship or parents themselves do a much better job than any school and we agree.

Despite free school rules which state that RE must be taught, the primary?s application ? which the head teacher said included its decision to drop the subject ? was approved by the Department for Education . . A spokesman for the Department said that the school's application said it would address religion in an ?appropriate fashion? ? which had been taken by Whitehall officials as an assurance that the subject would be taught . .

Steve Spokes, the head teacher, said the decision not to teach RE had been taken after conversations with almost 600 parents.

Parents have said their particular religion is best dealt with by their own places of worship or inside the family, the Muslim community here feel that with recent events, such as the situation in Afghanistan, they are under siege. They didn?t want the school to teach religion ? their own religion let alone any other religion.

It is not just the Muslim community saying this. I have all sorts of people saying 'Why teach it? How much time would you be wasting with it?

While primary schools are entitled not to teach sex education, RE is a statutory requirement of the national curriculum . . [they] are also supposed to carry out a daily act of collective worship of a mainly Christian character, although a recent BBC survey showed that two-thirds ignore the legal requirement . . When alerted by The Telegraph to the school?s plans, officials from the DfE contacted the school about the rules regarding free schools and religious education. Later, a Department spokesman said:

The proposed Bristol Primary Free School is clear that it will be teaching religious education. It is a compulsory part of the curriculum and it is written into the funding agreements of all Free Schools that they must teach religious education. We will not sign a funding agreement if a proposer is refusing to do so. In its application form, the school stated that it would address religion in an appropriate fashion

Jotwicken, just to go back to your point, in Grey Court's case there has been no major rebuild or sponsor (although there are building plans now with the sixth form). That's the easy fix of politicians but it's down to hard work. Trust gets rebuilt when parents see good leadership and behaviour and ambition for all ability levels.

The teaching of RE is important so that children learn about other cultures as well as their own. Even the BHA would agree with that.

The only worrying thing about that Bristol story is that the proposers of the school didn't realise RE was statutory. Makes me wonder what else they don't know.

Jo-there is no magic sauce just needs a great head and teachers and strong discipline and learning ethos.

Issue with some of the academies is they think they are great, but parents do not share their view. Schools get carried away by the few cheerleaders and stop listening to concerns of community.

Many of those who do not like what they see, do not provide feedback, just do not apply. Hence we have spare spaces in the eyes of the Council and schools, but for parents concerned about quality there are no spare spaces in the system!

All - regarding discussion on schools, I suggest that the best way to experience a school is to visit and see it in action and form your own opinion.
If there are concerns and feedback, it would be great to feed them to the leadership and evaluate their responses.

Excellent discussion on the Sunday Politics show (from 37:24) www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p1m09/Sunday_Politics_London_02_12_2012/ between Richard Ottaway (Con) and Rushonara Ali (Lab)
Nice piece on Radio 4 ?Sunday? programme on the Richmond case. Key points are well-made in terms of wider implications and the use of a loophole in the rules by the Diocese. MP3 now on the website here: www.richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk/files/view/press-cuttings/Radio_4_Sunday_2_Dec_12_-_Richmond_school_item.mp3. BBC link is: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p30f5

The Council data suggests that the already popular schools are seeing an ever increase in applications, especially after removal of linked system.
However with RPA likely to remain half full, what are the chances that the Council & the DfE will back a new free school in the borough ?

I was wondering about this. It depends whether the DfE takes the same view as the council on the effect of a new school on the two Kunskapsskolan Academies, in which it has invested a lot of money.

On the other hand, consider Hounslow: they had spare places in their Y7 in 2012-13, particularly the one which is due to be turned into an academy with the same sponsor as RPA. They still have some very popular schools, and they're all good or outstanding with a 'Mo Farah' effect on results this year. They seem to have a much lower number of parents offered 'none of their preferences' (4.5% compared with 9.3% in Richmond). Apart from Heathland (nearest to Whitton), the other schools oversubscribed on first preference for 2012 were faith schools (Green School and St Mark's) where there are fewer offers than applications per preference owing to the faith criteria. But of course, some were coming from Richmond where now there are more CofE places and another Catholic school.

Yet Hounslow has still had two new free schools approved with 160 secondary places.

Muminlondon - I wish Richmond was as fair as Hounslow council. It had a 50 50 Sikh school and not a exclusive like we got at Clifden. It also does not have a Director of Education saying I want no free schools in 2015 and friends in DFE exploiting loopholes !
Nick Whitfield is likely to play the numbers game again and sadly exploit the spare spaces in the weakest link in our borough.

I doubt that Hounslow council had any influence over the free schools. But spare capacity doesn't seem to affect approval decisions by the DfE.

Jo, councils have little influence over Free Schools, so you can't really give Hounslow LA the credit for the Sikh school's admissions policy. Given that Hounslow already had a number of Catholic and CofE VA schools, their council couldn't reasonably object to a Sikh Free School, even if they'd wanted to, and the 50:50 admissions policy is the most exclusive allowed under the Free School rules.

"It also does not have a Director of Education saying I want no free schools in 2015"

Neither do we! He's on record as saying he didn't want one at Clifden Road in 2013, and no more than that. Richmond LA have always been open to Free Schools, and are being very encouraging of the Turing House proposal. Their 10-year forecast that was produced in Nov 11 explicitly included 100 free school places. We know that some of the numbers in that forecast and its underlying assumptions now need to be updated (e.g. timing and size of the North Kingston school, reduction in out-borough applications, fill-rate of the Kunskapsskolan Academies) but those trends are all in the same direction, and are certainly unlikely to result in a sudden antipathy towards free school places in 2014.

"with RPA likely to remain half full, what are the chances that the Council & the DfE will back a new free school in the borough"

They possibly wouldn't encourage one in Sheen, but they're certainly not going to object to one on the Middlesex side of the borough. The last thing they're likely to want is for RISC's prediction of Twickenham children traveling to RPA to be proved correct!

It would represent poor value for money to open a new school when just a 10 mt train ride away there is a half empty school.

Today's RTT has a letter No regrets in keeping pledge, by Lord True, robustly defending his polices (p. 25) - which now includes creating a new 11-16 community school in Twickenham - plus my letter No to faith school funding on p. 27.

"new 11-16 community school in Twickenham"

Interesting they're calling it a Community School when it will have to be a Free School. (Unless they've found a loophole in that part of the legislation too!)

mmptsa "10 min train ride"??? RPA is a good twenty minute walk from the station. The area of Twickenham that is near the station is likely to stay within the Orleans catchment in the near future anyway, and who knows, local non Catholics may get pushed into St RR since Catholics are clearly preferring other schools. The area of Twickenham likely to find itself between the catchment areas is Fullwell and west of the green, a long way from the railway station, hence the catchment for the proposed free school Turing House agreed by the Council. Pupils from that area will probably face a two bus journey to RPA, which at rush hour can take over an hour, hence the Council's sensitivity on the issue of sending Middlesex pupils across to Surrey, highlighted by Bayjay.

We will not know until allocations are through whether RPA is half full. A lot of people will have put Tiffin and Christ's, and those in the Richmond a try for Orleans on distance, ahead in their preferences but many will not succeed with those applications. I understand that many happily put RPA further down the preferences on the basis they were assured of a place. The last set of results and the leadership of RPA have succeeded in making sure it is not entirely discounted by parents but still have persuading to do to make it a first choice, ahead of those other options. Of course this year we may see some of those Twickenham children making that journey away from their community to fill up spaces because whether there is sufficient capacity in Middlesex is going to be very close thing.

The other issue is that parents in this borough, and Sheen especially, have become accustomed to reluctantly moving or going private rather than be forced into schools they do not have confidence in. This Council has been very complacent about it's schools strategy as a result, and clearly places no value on the needs / desires of that group of parents. However the Free School programme is aimed at meeting parental needs rather than the needs / desires of the Council. Turing House has had no problems demonstrating demand.

Lord True's letter is as always written with blinkers on, he was of course in no way associated with a body peddling a national agenda....

"It would represent poor value for money to open a new school when just a 10 mt train ride away there is a half empty school"

Whether that's true or not, it isn't an argument that the current council administration are going to use. They defended using Clifden Road for St RR on the basis that they had a broader plan, and that broader plan has always assumed there will be some secondary Free School places. Both RISC and the LibDems have made the point that if no Free School places materialise then that will result in Twickenham children to Sheen (with Catholic children doing the same journey in the opposite direction). The council response to that accusation was ?We do not envisage any children on the Middlesex side of the river commuting to Richmond Park Academy unless it is through parental preference?, so they're unlikely to do a u-turn on that now.

"Unless they've found a loophole in that part of the legislation too"

Well, it's not exactly a loophole, but there may be a way for the LA to propose a Free School itself. The council's proposed social enterprise for running Education & Children's Services Achieving for Children might legitimately be the proposer.

I see lot of sympathy about Twickenham children who may have to travel to Sheen but none for those who already do long journeys from Sheen or the Catholic children who have to travel for 2 hrs.

Lord True is right on the money in his letter on education. As a defender of Catholic education, he has delivered on his promise. He is also right in pointing out that the academies werewrongly handed over to the national chains (Mcdonalds of education).
But now that they are there, people should accept them , instead of asking tax payers to fund new community schools, whilst there is spare capacity.

mmptsa We would welcome your insight on why more than two thirds of the Catholic parents in the borough who are choosing a school for their 11 year olds this year are still choosing to send them out of borough in spite of the journey, and only 67 (including Catholics from out of borough) have actually signed up for St RR's 150 places as first preference . That doesn't seem much of a "desire" to me, or at least not compared with the 276 who are chasing the 200 places at Orleans.

I think Lord True's letter is probably aiming to distance himself from the title "defender of Catholic education", that would somewhat undermine his argument that he is defending local "desires" against " bodies with a national agenda" although Jesus has something very appropriate to say about first removing the beam from your own eye before removing the speck from your brothers.

If only a third of the 10% of the community this school was supposed to be desired by actually desire it, almost certainly less than 60 families, that is pretty poor value for money and a wasteful use of a desired and rare site too. I am sure Turing House will represent far better value for money in terms of meeting the desires of local residents.

DfE is spending millions on the academies. If there are 200 open spaces in Richmond, it would be poor value to add another 150