Richmond Borough Schools Chat 5

[BayJay2]

Welcome! This is the latest in a series of threads about Richmond schools, which was first triggered by the council's publication of its Education White Paper in February 2011.

Please do join in the chat. There’s a bunch of us who’ve been following the thread for a long time, and we sometimes get a bit forensic, but new contributions are always welcome, and if it’s something that’s been covered before we can always direct you to that part of the thread.

We generally talk about local education policy, the impact of national policy, the performance of the borough’s schools, and admissions-related issues. We began by talking about Secondaries, but tend to talk a lot about primaries too, so the title of the thread has evolved this time to take that into account.

If you have a few hours to spare and want to catch up on 2 years of local education history, then below are the links to the old threads. We have to keep starting new threads because each only hold 1000 posts. The first two threads run in parallel, as one was started on the national Mumsnet site, and another on the local one:

1a) New Secondaries for Richmond Borough?: Mumsnet Secondary Education (Feb 2011 – Nov 2011)
1b) New Secondary schools for Richmond!: Mumsnet Local (Feb 2011 – Nov 2011)

1. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2: Mumsnet Local (Nov 2011 – May 2012)

1. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 3: Mumsnet Local (May 2012 – Nov 2012)

1. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 4: Mumsnet Local (Nov 2012 – Oct 2013)

1. This thread: Richmond Borough Schools Chat 5: Mumsnet Local (Oct 2013 - ????)

Finally, to find out how to add links, as well as smilies and emphasis, see these Mumsnet guidelines.

Good posts on both points heathclif.

Anyone seen this poll of the UK's happiest places? Twickenham is in the bottom 10. I'm not sure they are comparing similar demographics and I'll bet a lot of the happy Harrogate crowd are retired and not negotiating the minefields of school catchments and London house prices. But I wonder if we'll see some upsets in the elections tomorrow?

Anyone seen this news? A free school proposal was blocked by the Catholic church in Liverpool where they had hoped to attract poorer students.

news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/05/20/free-school-bid-by-elite-st-mary-39-s-college-blocked-by-church-leaders.aspx

Well, at least St Richard Reynold's hasn't converted to academy status yet - it would be a hugely cynical and hypocritical move to give only half-hearted support to the free schools/academies programme, e.g. reject restrictions on admissions criteria, yet exploit any financial advantages.

mum I understand they are planning to convert very soon, with unseemly haste............ www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/677/free-but-fettered

And life is certainly not that simple for Harrogate parents, it's reputation as a place to retire to is out of date, it is a popular place to move for parents commuting into Leeds partly because of it's schools, think of a northern Teddington. Grammar School in Ripon switched admissions a few years ago from teacher assessment to 11+ and a tutoring industry was born, plus small and shrinking catchments for the comprehensive Harrogate Grammar and ever more rigorous faith criteria for St Aidens and St John Fisher. What wealthy elderly retirees remain, in the flats around The Stray are besieged by 11 year olds seeking to do good deeds. It's a rather familiar story.............

Gumley House has slipped from Outstanding to Good since converting to academy status, so maybe the staff and parents should consider carefully whether this is the route to go down. No sign that Christ's have made progress towards converting either.

It could just be coincidental - Ofsted is indeed tough these days. But someone should tell Frank Snelling who writes all those letters to the RTT saying 'church schools are better'.

This Is Local London had (Maya 19): 'No school places crisis' says Kingston Council leader Liz Green:

. . Liberal Democrat and Kingston Council leader Councillor Liz Green said there were always dropouts and many of the children ended up going to private schools. She said: “People like that term ‘school crisis’. But there is no crisis in Kingston. We are providing the school places.” But David Cunningham, the Conservative councillor overseeing schools, said: “I think the figures are disturbing. “It really shows the problem in Kingston schools, particularly in north Kingston.” He said council officers publicly admitted they faced “a challenge” even if they did not admit to a crisis . .

• Christian group Chapel Street and Gems, who run schools across the world, including in the United Arab Emirates, have put in applications for funding. They are expected to be told whether they are successful by the Education Funding Authority in the next few weeks.
• Chapel Street wants to open a primary and secondary school in Kingston or Norbiton to begin opening its first stage by September 2015.
• Gems is hoping to run a primary school somewhere in Tolworth, starting with 60 pupils.

An interesting but partisan set of comments! After Thursday, Green is now ex-leader and Cunningham is the man in the hot seat. The Tories, it appears, have a long record of opposing any proposal for a new school so it will be interesting to see how he gets on.

... "there were always dropouts and many of the children ended up going to private schools" ...

To parents worried about getting a good state school place for their own child that is no comfort ... she may as well have said "if you don't like your offer, and have no hope of getting anything better before September, don't worry, you can always go private! And if you can't afford it, again don't worry, because others can, and they'll leave their unwanted places behind for you".

About the project to redevelop the Richmond upon Thames College site in Twickenham and provide a new secondary free school

The result of the free school application is expected to be announced in June or July, but I heard that the principal of the college has confirmed there is a big funding gap in their project.

I found his blog in March on the college website which says there is a shortfall of around 25% of the capital funding required. That’s at least £10 million they need from the LSC, or possibly closer to double that figure.

Does anyone know whether that involves a competitive bidding process of some sort with the LSC?

LSC? Do you mean the DfE? (Department for Education).

If the free school proposal is approved then the costs of developing the secondary school should be covered.

I think this is good news:

Guardian 29 May: 'Ofsted to end third-party contracts and employ school inspectors directly'

A lot of Ofsted inspectors have been employed by companies such as Serco, Tribal and CfBT, which also provide services to schools and/or sponsor academies. It's easy to accuse those businesses of a conflict of interests. There are also some very odd cases - almost industrial espionage - such as when the CEO of the Harris Academies inspected London Nautical School. Good article here.

Hello, BayJay2 -

The result of the (Twickenham) free school application looks likely to be announced in June or July, later than planned.

The funding gap referred to by the principal seems to be about getting the capital needed for redeveloping Richmond upon Thames College. (And I see the Skills Funding Agency has taken over from the LSC.)

Does the SFA use a competitive process for awarding funding, does anyone know? The outcome is pretty crucial to plans for building a new free school on the site by 2017.

Tw2dad, I don't know about SFA funding. I'd assumed the college rebuild was to be funded by the sale of the land to Haymarket/housing and that the Secondary School would be funded by the free school application.

My default assumption for the 25% was that it was a reference to the free school funding.

If the building project wasn't complete for 2017 then temporary accommodation could be used, either on or off-site.

The website says Richmond Council is chipping in with at least £10m towards the new free school, BayJay2. 'A minimum of £10million has been pledged to date.'

The funding gap affects the college and the capital it requires for its 'state of the art' facilities. Without the funding (and planning permission too) no guarantees can be given for the additional secondary places the Council says are needed by 2017. The college rebuild is closely linked to the new school on the same site.

Hence my question about whether the college is in competition with other bids. If so, it might be rather in the balance. We really could do without this, especially with Turing House seemingly in a predicament too.

Tw2dad, under current rules for setting up new schools the council couldn't 'guarantee' the places even if there was no funding gap, because it would still be dependent on Govt approval for the free school bid. That's based on more than just site finances.

However afaik REEC haven't made any guarantees - they're just working their hardest to make it happen, like every other free school proposal group.

Thank you, JayBay2. Yes, hopefully the free school application approval will come through, as I mentioned, this month or next.

Actually this new secondary school is quite a bit more complicated than other free school proposals. There are several additional dependencies, such as the college rebuild getting planning permission as well and getting it funded by proceeds from the sale of land for office and residential developments etc.

The SFA funding looks like the missing piece in the jigsaw, hence my question about whether it is a competitive bid i.e. with others bidding as well (or a straight application for money out of the kitty).

Anyone know?

I don't know anything about this but there was an interesting Independent article about cuts in government spending for sixth forms. The biggest threat is to sixth form colleges. The implications of the council's policy on funding school sixth forms must have been severe for the College.

We discussed relative size of sixth forms on one of these threads many months back and wondered how smaller sixth forms could cope without working together to share resources. What I don't understand is the relationship between Richmond College and the new free school.

"and wondered how smaller sixth forms could cope without working together to share resources."

I understand the idea is that they do just that, and the college is part of the partnership too.

The new secondary at Egerton Rd would be an 11-16 school, feeding into the college for sixth form. Of course pupils could apply to the other sixth forms too, or another college, but it's assumed the majority will go into Richmond College. (There's a FAQ about that on the REEC website I think. Sorry, can't link it right now as I'm on my mobile).

TW2dad, have you tried asking your question about SFA funding via the REEC website?

REEC FAQs:

•	  Will it have a sixth form??  No – the school will link directly to the College for its Sixth Form provision.?

•	  Will there be changes to the College curriculum??  Yes – this is currently being planned and developed.??

Thanks for the page link, muminlondon2. I’ll check it out now and see if it might affect RUT College at all.

As Chris said, the College will be a sixth form provider for the proposed secondary school. The College and the free school will also share resources such as catering, sports facilities, etc and the College wants joint ‘governance’ of the school. (So it won’t be an independent unit.)

The biggie is that the free school will be built as part of the overall redevelopment of the whole College site. Building new offices, new College premises and the new school on the main playing field, demolishing the old buildings for residential development, new SEN school too.

Wouldn’t be sure if the free school would go ahead on its own, without the College rebuild etc.

I am very unclear how 6th form provision is shaping up at each of the LB Richmond schools - no one seems to be giving us parents an overall view of how many of them will be focusing on A-levels and how many will be more vocational, but it does seem as though most are going down the mainly A-level route. As they will all give priority to their own students and as they only have half the number of places as their yrs 7-11 part of the school there will still be lots of students needing places on vocational courses somewhere. Richmond College has been a provider of an excellent academic experience in the past including the International Bacc. and presumably the parents of students studying at the new school will be a bit annoyed if that doesn't continue alongside the vocational courses? I would like to see a proper vision for where all this is going asap. The only thing we ever seem to hear about the poor College is how physically and morally run down it is. Half the population of Twickenham seems to have got the false impression that it's now surplus to requirements and can be shut down and that it will only effect children from Lambeth!

LP, have you seen the 2014 prospectus for the sixth forms? The 2015 prospectus isn't out yet, but will be here when it's published.

As an aside, I just noticed that RACC (the adult & community college, as distinct from Richmond College, although they are feature in the 6th form brochure because they do cater for the 16-18 age group) dropped down from Outstanding to RI at its recent inspection.

Hello all,

I'm new to the thread and to Richmond ... not sure if this has been covered already (if so could someone pls point me in the right direction).

8 Richmond primaries have bulge classes this year. Is there a published report on which schools will be permanently expanded in the next few years? I have heard the Russell will be expanded in 2015 for example but cannot find any council literature confirming this.

Many thanks

Hi Moleskine. Welcome to Richmond! The information you need about expansions is on the council website here.

There are also two primary free school proposals being assessed by the DfE at the moment for 2015 opening. There is some information about those here.

Plus, there has been talk on this thread in the past about Collis expanding to 4FE eventually (based on this newsletter item). It's not confirmed though afaik.

The RACC judgement is a shock but it looks like all FE colleges now have to do a lot more with less cash. I read FE and sixth forms have to pay VAT unlike schools. Lots of grants have been cut. FE colleges seem to be at the frontline of the creeping privatisation/marketisation of education. Which has led to fraud and money is diverted to subsidise private colleges. It seems to be a complete mess.