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.

I think GEMS was approved for Kingston rather than Richmond (Surbiton Primary School) while in Richmond there is just Bellevue (Richmond Bridge Primary).

Meanwhile, I notice that another RET-backed free school with a CofE denomination, Becket Keys, has received an outstanding Ofsted report. I'm slightly sceptical as to why CofE schools should be allowed to set as free schools using criteria that allow up to 50% faith places when the CofE already has a privileged position in terms of the voluntary aided schools route. But governance gets a very positive mention:

'[Teachers] benefit from regular whole-school training and personalised support in their specialist subjects provided by the school’s sponsor Trust. [It provides] a wealth of knowledge and experience that adds significantly to the school’s capacity to make improvements. They are professional and business-like.'

Oh, I'm wrong. Just seen 'Twickenham Primary School'. GEMS does seem to have had some controversial figureheads - Sir Peter Birkett and 'peace envoy' Tony Blair.

Richmond Council press releases:

Over 800 primary school places approved for the borough [120 reception places]

Proposal for new secondary school receives green light

Lots more news in Kingston Guardian:

'Councillors promise to put pressure on Government over north Kingston free school' - planning application yet to be approved, lack of information from DfE according to new council leader

'Two new free schools announced for Kingston today but where will they go?'

The RTT is still to report on this news.

More free school news. There's an advert in the RTT for an inclusive secondary proposal for Hounslow, Brentford and Isleworth, for 2017. It may (or may not, depending on the pupil numbers and availability of sites) be a rival bid to the proposed Green School for Boys. That wasn't approved for 2015, although it sounds like they will reapply for 2016.

I find it a bit bewildering that the Dept of Education thinks it will now be able to buy 3 sites in Twickenham/Richmond Bridge area for free schools when it hasn't even managed to buy one yet. Turing House is supposed to be in Twickenham after all although the most serious contenders for a site so far have been in Teddington and Hampton as no room in Twickenham apparently. Do the D of E have to approve any application that makes the grade without even thinking about whether it will be possible to find a physical space for the schools? Presumably they will take the same view about the need for a permanent site to be in the bag before they allow these two primaries to open? 420 children take up quite a lot of room and all those old office blocks are now being converted into flats.

Today's RTT has (p 4) New free school for college site and DoE approves a total of 800 primary places.

LP, don't forget that primaries need a much smaller space than secondaries. The sort of site required for a primary might serve a secondary on a temporary basis, but not long term.

The RTT Online has: [[http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/richmondnews/11288963.Richmond_College_and_Haymarket_plans_get_Government_go_ahead/?ref=eb Richmond College and Haymarket plans get Government go ahead
]]

The Hounslow proposal is interesting - supported by '14 secondary schools, 54 primary schools and 5 special schools and West Thames College all in the borough of Hounslow'.

A full list of the new schools is here. To put the Richmond and Kingston proposals in context:

34 of those schools are mainstream schools

18 of these are primary schools (including two in Richmond and one in Kingston)
8 of these are secondary schools (including one in Richmond)
8 of these are all-through schools (including one in Kingston)
5 of these are 16-19 schools.

5 of the mainstream schools are religious (including one in Kingston).

Bay Jay I know a primary school is smaller than a secondary but if they need to secure 2 permanent sites for 420 children each they can't be tiny. Hopefully they will have some outdoor space and they will need 14 classrooms and a hall and a few other rooms.

Yes, they use a formula to calculate the minimum amount of space needed. It's online somewhere (sorry, on mobile so can't find at the mo).

The schools will have identified potential sites as part of their proposal. However, as with Turing House, they're dependent on the EFA for securing them.

Sites do have to be found though, children do have to be educated, and that will require the planners and local residents to be imaginative and community minded. The response of people close to the NPL in Teddington was rather especially to someone who lives near St RR who can, and continue to, completely ignore local residents.

ThisIsLocalLondon has : Councillors promise to put pressure on Government over north Kingston free school:

. . New Kingston Council leader Kevin Davis said he was "increasingly concerned" at a lack of information from the DfE and Education Funding Agency with just 15 months to go. The opening of the school has already been pushed back by a year, from 2014 to 2015. The planning application has still not been approved. He said: "Although the local authority is obviously a part of the school, the future of how it arrives is completely out of our hands."

. . A DfE spokesman said: "The Kingston Academy is on track to open in September 2015 as planned. A principal has been appointed and the North Kingston Centre site has been secured. Work will start soon, leaving plenty of time for it to open in September 2015."

Houses near NPL proposed Turing House site have been in primary school black spot for ages and this year I know of at least one child who didn't get into Teddington School and has still not got a place from waiting list. Houses near Imperial College Sports ground are well within catchments of Teddington Schools so less likely to get sympathy in that part of Teddington. In general still very few people understand any of it I would say.

The first edition of the Richmond Education and Enterprise Campus e-newsletter has:

. . In June 2014, the Department of Education agreed that the Richmond College Academy Trust could establish a new school for 11 to 16 year-olds on the site of the College, opening in September 2017. The School will be co-educational, non-selective and non-faith based and would admit five forms of entry (150 children) per year. The Academy Trust, (Richmond upon Thames College Free School Trust) has now been legally established. Membership of the Trust consists of: the College, Harlequins and Richmond Council.

The School will link directly to the College for its Sixth Form and the curriculum offer in the two institutions will be closely aligned. This will allow for the close planning of transition from School to College and for joint curriculum development and associated training. The Campus will also provide students with seamless access to facilities and expertise . .

Statistics on secondary and primary school applications and offers 2014 have just been published.

Richmond had 2,509 home applicants for 2,576 primary school places. In contrast Wandsworth, Sutton and Merton all had fewer places than applicants for primary schools, and Hounslow and Kingston had less than 1% spare capacity.

But Richmond still had children unplaced after allocations - and 2.8% were also offered a non-preferred school. It had a lower proportion of children applying outside the borough, too, but must have more children applying from neighbouring boroughs, as is usual.

For secondary, the number of applications from Richmond children exceeded local places by 38 - despite this, everyone received an offer (some 15.7% still receiving a place in other boroughs) but for 6.4% they were allocated a non-preferred school. Kingston and Hounslow secondary schools were undersubscribed in relation to HOME applicants by over 10%, Sutton by 25%, but presumably received applications for their grammar and church schools from outside their boroughs.

A relatively high percentage of Richmond pupils are staying (or at least were offered places) within the LA for secondary, however - 84.3%. It ranges from 60.7% for Merton (many of whom apply to Sutton) and 68.6% for Hammersmith and Fulham to 100% for Waltham Forest.

RTT Online has Two free primary schools In Richmond get Department for Education approval:

Two free schools were approved by the DfE, to provide 120 extra primary school places next year, building to a total of more than 800.

Bellevue Place Education Trust was given the green light to open Richmond Bridge Primary School from September 2015, with an intake of 60 pupils before eventually growing to 420 places. The Gems Learning Trust has also been given the go-ahead to open a school of the same size, Twickenham Primary, next year . . Both organisations will now work together with the Education Funding Agency to identify sites for their schools.

Spotted this in last night's Evening Standard - it's about another new free school, Fulham Boys School, having plug pulled on September 2014 as it had not secured a permanent site.Those involved were relying on shutting down Sulivan Primary School to provide a permanent site despite the fact that there was a lot of local opposition and the likelihood of a change of control in the local authority in May:
www.standard.co.uk/news/education/parents-devastated-after-fulham-free-school-axed-weeks-before-opening-9581080.html

Another BBC story concerns 21 parents in Redbridge allocated a Hindu primary school place for lack of any other available places, despite it not being their religion. If it had that many places available for allocation it can't have been very popular in the first place.

Just noticed that Clarendon School has been rated Outstanding. It will be part of the new REEC secondary school campus, which looks like a great opportunity for inclusion and sharing specialist facilities and awareness between the schools.

We talked about UTCs (Kenneth Baker is enthusiastic for these 14-19 technical colleges). But the first to open is also the first to close after two years in Hackney.

Hmm, not a great start. Shame.

While I'm on, it looks like Mumsnet Tech have finally fixed the bug that stopped local threads being added to the Watch list. It's useful if you want to get an email when someone posts - there's a tick-box on the watch-list to enable that. It's working for now, but might be flaky.

The bilingual Spanish primary school proposal hasn't been decided yet (see point 4). Does it have anything to do with the Bilingual Primary School - Brighton and Hove, which is also Spanish/English? It has just had a disappointing 'Requires improvement' Ofsted report. A whistleblower reported it to the DfE for financial irregularities and while no fraud was found, it was reported that there were mistakes and a general lack of financial expertise. Their website is down so I can't see if it is the same backers.

I'm wondering if it is the same as the Richmond/H&F proposals because it was reported last year in the Guardian as looking for a site in London.