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.

Yes, the figures are available in the 2013 school census. And you can look them up on Edubase too although the data matches age rather than curriculum year. The BBC reported on this last year.

Some of the Suffolk free schools had less than 40 pupils in Y7 in 2013. Bristol Free School was rather controversial before opening because there were 300 unfilled places at schools within three miles or something, but it opened with around 70-80 pupils out of 150. If another 30 or so places subsequently filled as people switched schools (from the figures that seems to be the case) that may well have been at the expense of those local schools too. Fortunately there isn't so much of a surplus in Twickenham so Turing House hasn't attracted such criticism, but had Thomson House been a secondary phase school that would have been controversial among RPA governors.

muminlondon & bayjay: a Lib Dem council would not have supported a Catholic bid for either a VA or a free school: the party is overwhelmingly either atheist or nonconformist and anticlerical sentiment is surprisingly strong, particularly amongst those members who are ‘nonconformist atheists’ rather than ‘CofE atheists’. So there would have been no VA scheme, ‘strong lobby’ or not.

The choice of free school sponsor would have been made by Michael Gove not by the Council who would have had to sell or lease the site to them. There might well have been several rival bids and strong competition for parental support but I can’t imagine a Catholic free school bid winning majority non-Catholic support against one or several attractive secular alternatives

Some of the early free schools were approved on the grounds that they would provide some competition to local schools that were stubbornly under-performing, and under-subscribed as a result. Bristol probably falls firmly into that category, and its impact assessment shows it was expected to adversely affect a couple of schools. It's not surprising that was controversial. However, I understand the impact wasn't as great as some people predicted, simply because many of the people choosing BFS would have otherwise moved house or used private schools rather than the under-performing secondaries. Some of the local private schools might have suffered a bit when BFS opened, but the impact assessment doesn't cover those.

'a Lib Dem council would not have supported a Catholic bid for either a VA or a free school'

I think this statement reflects the LibDem tensions locally and nationally because Vince Cable supports free schools and so does Nick Clegg despite being an atheist but grassroots supporters have other ideas, as over tuition fees. The leaders could not have escaped criticism of being either inconsistent or hypocritical and having supported CofE primaries locally could have been accused of favouritism.

Vince Cable supports faith schools and so does Nick Clegg

BayJay if Bristol Free School had an impact on the private sector I have no objection to this, just as I would happily see less reliance on the private sector in Richmond borough!

Did anyone get the letter re. The new proposals for a free school on the richmond college campus? We received it yesterday. Happy to share but guess most of us got it?

Hi Boysmumto3, yes I think all the primaries had letters in book bags (mine did anyway). I also got a leaflet through my door, and there was something in the Richmond and Twickenham Times about it (and Chris linked to the council press release a few posts back too).

I believe they're planning to put the proposal into the next Free School funding round by January 10th, although there's another in May. This year the DfE have broken the process down into three rounds. The first was in September, and that is when GEMS will have put their primary bid in. Not sure when the approvals are being announced, though it might be in the guidance notes somewhere.

How come GEMS have already put a bid in yet didn't announce any meetings to explain it to parents till October?

muminlondon, I'm speculating, but as they put a bid in last year it was presumably ready to re-submit, with whatever changes they felt were needed. They would have already gathered evidence of parental support for the previous bid, some of which could be carried over. They may have gathered more in the meantime by approaching nurseries etc. Proposers are also expected to continue collecting evidence of support after their bids have been submitted. There's an opportunity to update the numbers before the interview takes place.

Last time the bid was advertised with a completely different sponsor - so some of the names they gathered may have thought they were getting an organisation with a different track record gained in Sweden!

They do seem to have had a couple of problem schools which they have either sold or renamed. The Webber Independent was Bury Lawn - it's referred to in a 2005 BBC report, and the school still appears undersubscribed). Another that proved expensive to run was Kingswood College (now Scarisbrick Hall (historical report here) which they sold to developers in 2009, although it was later saved as a school by local buyers.

Muminlondon: "Last time the bid was advertised with a completely different sponsor"

That's not actually true. They began promoting the school through IES in Dec 2012, and held 2 meetings, but the change came very soon after that and the bid was submitted very early in January 2013 as GEMS.

I've seen a promotional leaflet that was circulated to nurseries in March 2013 under the GEMS banner, so parents signing up at that time would have been fully aware it was a GEMS school.

In any case, parents sign up to support the school vision, and are not necessarily expected to investigate the trustees' track record (though of course some will!). It's the DfE's job to assess capacity and capability. They've recently approved GEMS as an academy sponsor.

It's a bit strange why they were turned down as a sponsor on the Wokingham primary yet approved as one only weeks later. The DfE works in mysterious ways.

The Kingswood College school was actually sold in 2007 three years after it had been bought. Lovely building, designed by Pugin, which GEMS sold to developers giving little notice to staff and pupils, it seems. But a local family came to its rescue and renamed the school. It was even mentioned in Hansard last year.

"It's a bit strange .."

I don't know if it's strange or not. I think the fairest assumption, unless there's evidence to the contrary, is that they've been working hard to address any issues that were standing in the way of them being approved previously, and have now made the grade.

When is new school at Egerton Road due to open? 2016 and even 2017 sounds quite ambitious if they have to get planning consent for the whole site and for Teddington Studios first (once and if it gets through the current stage of site allocations approvals) and then build the Haymarket offices and new 6th form first on the playing fields before they can start developing the front of the site. But maybe temporary buildings for a year or two somewhere else I suppose. Major building site not a very good environment to go to school in especially if you have asthma.

The funding round is for 2015 and beyond. The council press release says the school is planned for 2017.

If it's not feasible to put temporary buildings on the site then they could use temporary accommodation elsewhere. A lot of free schools do that, and temporary school buildings are of a very high quality these days.

'they've been working hard to address any issues that were standing in the way of them being approved previously'

It did sell five prep schools in July. One of them was Moor Allerton whose ISI inspection in 2012 had noted that 'the governing body, operating at the level of the company running the group of schools, lacks a sufficiently detailed insight into the working of the school'. It also mentioned short-term planning, but perhaps the company's decision to sell the school was the reason for this.

Another sold in 2011, Ladymede, might have been closed if it had not been 'rescued at the 11th hour'.

I don't see how these changes could have influenced the DfE, however. I thought they wanted sponsors with a good track record in the independent sector - Thomson House must benefit from its association with Harrodian, for example.

On the issue of approving sponsors, a new inquiry by the MPs' Education Committee has been announced on academies and free schools. One of the points on the list is:

'The process for approving, compelling and establishing academies and free schools, including working with sponsors'

So MPs obviously have questions about the whole process too. It would seem more transparent and democratic if the committee is able to report its findings before the next wave of approved bids is announced. If there are three 'waves' of approvals this year, it does sound very much like the DfE is trying to rush the process without scrutiny.

I found the timings for the announcements in the guidance notes. The results of the first wave will be "late 2013", second wave in "Spring 2014" and third wave in "Summer 2014".

"it does sound very much like the DfE is trying to rush the process.."

Muminlondon, I think they're trying to manage the workload efficiently across the year. However, the 2015 General Election is obviously looming on the horizon. Any schools getting approval now will be due to open after that. They'll be aiming to get as many suitable proposals through as possible in these 3 waves, as there may not be any more funding rounds started until after the election.

'They'll be aiming to get as many suitable proposals through as possible'

one way of putting it!

I'm glad free schools and academies are being scrutinised together as the lack of transparency around sponsors may apply even where a council has selected a 'preferred' partner. Several new chains have been set up by Tory donors or advisers who advocate profit-making. In Westminster and Wandsworth the same chains are setting up both academies and free schools.

Mum in London - I do hope you are writing a book about all this because it's fascinating and I would love to see all this research grouped together. GEMs with their trail of lousy prep schools sound like an outfit that anyone not desperate to float their flagship policy would run a mile from but perhaps the important detail is well beyond me especially at this time of night!

BTW I happened to look at the main Mumsnet secondary pages the other day and saw a long discussion about the merits of Waldegrave vs the Green School, Twickenham Academy and many other localish schools peopled by knowledgeable but entirely different contributors. Can we tempt them over to join us in this local chaty or have we strayed so far from the realities of who behaves well on the bus (not TA apparently) that normal parents no longer wish to tread this thread?

Feel free to give us a plug LP!

LProsser people do change usernames over there - don't think we can do that on local any more?

I saw a link to a blog by an ex-adviser of Gove who gives reasons for having changed his mind on profit-making in schools. One reason is that doing proper tenders involves a full procurement exercise including advertising in the EU, etc. Still, it makes me even more nervous that the process of selecting sponsors and approving bids lacks transparency and accountability. One for profit company that has just bought a school off GEMS has had approval for a school in Islington but there seems to have been little public information. It's the site Islington council wanted to develop for housing - occupied by squatters at the moment. Worth checking on the maps to see if the ward had a shortage of primary places.

The RTT has Tories are delivering (p 26), a letter from Tony Shoebridge rebutting my letter of the previous week (Nov 08 p.26) asserting that the Lib Dem can take credit for 19 of the extra 21 permanent forms of entry that the council created between 2000 and 2012.

I am not, as the letter asserts, a Liberal Democrat spokesman: all opinions I express are my own.