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.

Was trying to find some statistics for you and found a Mayor's Education Report. According to page 41 Richmond sends nearly 50% of its 19-21 year olds to university, especially Russell Group (40% of those at university), but that would include all those at independent schools being one of the wealthiest boroughs.

This might be relevant but not sure where to dig:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/destinations-of-key-stage-4-and-key-stage-5-pupils-2011-to-2012

Interesting in that it shows that 3 years ago 28% from Richmond state schools finishing Key Stage 4 went to a "Sixth Form College" and 49% to "Further Education". Fewer went to a state school sixth form (7% presumably Tiffin or other out of borough) and only 1% to an independent school. I'm not sure which of the colleges - Richmond, Esher, Strodes etc. would count as which. But this is quite out of date and the picture will have changed for those leaving in 2014 because of 6th forms. It would be odd for no monitoring of the impact of a flagship policy to take place locally.

Hmm. According to the performance table descriptions, various local institutions are:

Esher College - Sixth Form College
RuT College - Tertiary College
Strode's College - FE Sector Institution
RACC - General FE College

Wikipedia makes the distinction for tertiary colleges that 'Unlike sixth form colleges, the staff join lecturers' rather than teachers' unions' so I'm thinking it might be classed as FE rather than sixth form. So maybe 28% would go to Esher College and 49% to RuT College or Strode's?

In a consultation response from David Igoe representing Strode's and Esher as sixth form colleges (so who knows?) he says 'Esher College currently attracts about 425 students from Richmond Borough with around 250 from the Borough attending Strode's'. That could be over Y12 and Y13.

Then Malcolm Eady for the LibDems says that:

' data ( a few years ago ), showed that 16% of Richmond children in Y11 transferred to Esher College and 62% to RuTC ... '.

I'm sure Malcolm Eady will be keeping tabs on those figures just as Lord True will be rubbing his hands in anticipation of StRR appearing alongside the other schools in the Times Parent Power lists for A-level results.

I shall have to let Lord True know that the girl who showed me around the Teddington sixth form had chosen to move there from Claremont and was having a lovely time! She lived in the Borough too (Hampton). It would be amusing if the sixth forms succeeded in attracting lots of students from the private sector whose parents would otherwise have carried on paying for them whilst those from Richmond's "Academies" carried on hot footing to Esher and Strodes. Presumably the local authority has no powers to curb out of borough migration on costs grounds?!

Have there been any published stats re numbers in the new 6th forms?
I heard that RPA had 29 6th formers only (from a local parent)??
Someone counted the students in a newspaper photo of Teddington 6th form and counted the faces
Surely there must be reliable published figures so we don't have to scrabble around like this? why not just tell us the numbers...

You'll be able to see numbers in the census figures when they are reported - usually at the end of the academic year. Maybe the Admissions Forum will mention sixth forms too (next meeting February). There are no more education committee meetings because Achieving for Children has taken over and the secondaries are independent of the council.

Hi Mrs Salvo - just after I counted the faces in the Teddington sixth form photo the school told parents that almost 100 students were enrolled in the sixth form at Teddington - and more were still joining late before half term. I think their maximum number was 120. I have heard that Waldegrave is full or full-ish aswell. I think the only way you can find out is reading the school's websites and newsletters or ringing them up or going to an open evening and asking. It does seem bizarre that the local authority decided on this policy and spent millions on it but doesn't give out any information about how successful it's been.

Have also heard anecdotally that the local sixth forms have proven very popular with private school parents, would be interesting to know the numbers staying on from secondary level. This year's IB cohort are the last, and it's being cut due to funding rather than lack of interest. It does have a slight majority of out of borough students, many from international schools as mentioned, but will still be a loss to the borough as will limit student choice.

Soopermum1 I wonder if we are neighbours? I live in Richmond borough, but right by the Hounslow border. We have put SRR as our first choice, but I think we fall in category 2a, we live in one of the Richmond parishes, although we worship elsewhere.

Just want to say thanks muminlondon for the advice!

Hello all! We're on 987 messages, which will soon become 1000 if a hot topic comes up over the weekend. That means it's time to move over to thread 6!.

Just filling this one up now, while it's quiet. This is 989.

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1000! See you over here.