Richmond Borough Schools Chat 6

[BayJay2]

Hello! This is the latest thread in a series originally triggered by Richmond Council's Education White Paper in Feb 2011. We chat about local education policy, the local impact of national policy, local school performance, and admissions-related issues.

Please do join in. 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.

If you have a few hours to spare and want to catch up on 4 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 run in parallel, as one was started on the national Mumsnet site, and the other locally:

1a) New Secondaries for Richmond Borough? (Feb 11 - Nov 11)
1b) New Secondary schools for Richmond! (Feb 11-Nov 11)

1. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2 (Nov 11-May 12)
2. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 3 (May 12-Nov 12)
3. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 4 (Nov 12-Oct 13)

1. Richmond Borough Schools Chat 5 (Oct 13-Nov 14)
2. Richmond Borough Schools Chat 6 (Nov 14 - ????) : This thread!

At Darell, we got funding for a very small amount of rebuilding (kitchens and a new library), which was meant to be completed early this academic year. It is still continuing. I suppose it might almost be done by the end of the academic year, at the current rate of progress.

Has an academy ever been "repatriated"!? ie. is a local authority legally allowed to take over a failing academy or is becoming an academy a completely irreversible process? I can't see another sponsor being available in a week as suggested by Gummer Junior.

There has been talk about the need to rebuild the Collis infant block for many years so maybe there are some plans somewhere already. Certainly it was invoked as a reason not to do lots of things outside, e.g. put in a multi use games area, for the whole 8 years my daughter was there as whatever was done might end up being built over again. It's been acknowledged to be a failing building for about 20 years - one of a job lot built for the Council in early 70s most of which have already had to be rebuilt! The Council's education strategy seems pretty clear about expansion to four forms being the preferred option.

LP, he said there should be a change of sponsor if an action plan isn't produced within a week. Presumably it will take a greater period of time for the sponsor to actually be changed.

The most recent LST Board draft minutes indicate that considerable investment would be required to make the necessary improvements at Ipswich.

An academy can't be taken over by the LA because its contract is with the DfE. A council cannot create a new school in its place either although perhaps a new government will repeal that. But a new sponsor could take over with a new funding agreement. These last for seven years although both the Academies Commission and recently the education select committee this be shortened to five years. Funding agreements are very quick to set up for existing school sites but much harder to break and apart from being judged 'inadequate' and perhaps also missing the floor targets (both of which apply here) it is hard to define performance standards. If TA or HA had five-year contracts they would be up for renewal in September - but though they don't and haven't been judged inadequate, the chain will lose some of its resourcing and economy of scale as it only had four schools.

Today's RTT has Spotlight on schools place crisis at Question Time (p 3), Expanding to meet demand (p 10) and 'Kept in dark over' free school details (p 15).

The Guardian has:

Sixth form colleges: we are an endangered species: Labour’s promise to protect spending on 16-19 education comes as many institutions are struggling to make cuts:

. . While spending on schools has been largely ringfenced, sixth form colleges have been exposed to years of cuts . . A quarter of sixth form colleges have already been declared “at financial risk”; if the cuts continue, some will be forced to close in the near future . . Thomson, principal of Brighton . . 6th form college . . is humorously despairing of education policy. He . . is contemptuous of politicians’ failure to heed evidence. “Sometimes it almost seems as if the European enlightenment didn’t happen,” he says. “Sixth form colleges give far better outcomes for young people, more cheaply than any other way of delivering sixth form education that has ever been tried in this country. It’s plainly bonkers not to be supporting them.” . .

Schoolsweek reports: The Department of Education (DfE) has released details of the most recent wave of 148 free school applications, despite fighting to withhold the information on seven previous occasions.

The British Humanists Association reports: The Department for Education (DfE) has for the first time provided the British Humanist Association (BHA) with the names, locations and religions of Free School applicants in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by the BHA asking for this information, which the BHA is publishing today.

. . In total there were some 148 applications to open Free Schools during the eighth wave of applications (which will open in 2015 or beyond). 41 of the applications are religious or pseudoscientific . .

DfE said ‘I would like to reiterate that this list is only being supplied to you. The list will be published on the GOV.UK website at a later date once the wave 8 free school interview rounds have finished.’ But the BHA has decided to publish the information anyway, both because the BHA believes that this information should be available at a formative stage, and because if the BHA can obtain it under FOI, so can anyone else . .
……………………
There are none in either Richmond or Kingston but two in Hounslow: Akal education (Sikh) and Avecenna Free School.

For info - there's a council press release here about the possibility of a local Multi Academy Trust formed to run RPA and its two local primaries, as someone mentioned a few weeks back. It's still not explicitly clear whether they're talking about completely replacing AET, although it's implied by the quote in the text.

This was picked up by the RTT and was also retweeted by the Local Schools Network. Slightly disingenuous to compare the situation with Waldegrave taking over Nelson which would otherwise have been forced to academise after its Ofsted report - considering the performance of most big chains is poor, linking with Waldegrave was Nelson's best available option, short of the LA being allowed to support Nelson as it used to do (and did temporarily and very effectively with its interim headteacher). Barnes and East Sheen don't need to changes status at all - the gain would all be RPA's.

But RPA is of course the only state option for pupils in those primaries so arguably it is in their interest that they work more closely together. Whereas a school like Grey Court would have to link with a greater number of primaries across two boroughs to do the same, and it is more likely to join up with Hollyfield in Kingston first, since its head has been interim part-time head there.

I'm wondering if there has been any pressure for Collis to join with Teddington? Or like with Orleans Park, maybe it would be problematic re-establishing feeder links when the main feeders are faith schools with discriminating admissions policies.

I haven't heard about any moves for the schools in Teddington to link up. As you say St Mary's and St Peter's has a very exclusive admissions policy but they also have a geographic admissions policy limiting to C of E in Teddington so quite a lot of their intake is in the Teddington School catchment area. St John's doesn't select by faith so far as I know and it is nearly all children from Hampton Wick Infants which is inclusive community. Those three schools are likely to supply nearly all of Teddington School's intake in future as they are 9-10 forms of entry and Teddington School is 8 forms of entry.

I guess it would be problematic for Turing House too, with its proposed new admissions point very near to Collis. I'm wondering if the councillors originally planned more of these clusters but have had to adapt their plans. One other thing I am curious about is why Lowther would not be part of this plan. Is it under PFI for its expansion? And are they planning to create this breakaway primary school trust first, then if need be wait two years for the expiry of RPA's funding agreement?

Whatever - I don't trust anything the councillors say. We haven't heard anything from the LibDems and announcing this plan in the press in this way, during half term, with such vague assumptions about whether it's legally possible for RPA to switch trust, sets off alarm bells.

I would assume that Turing House would be more likely to chum up with Stanley and Trafalgar which used to be linked to Teddington but from which very few get in anymore. But that's assuming its admission point stays in Fulwell. If it ends up in Udney Park Road with a catchment covering central and south Ted that duplicates Ted School's that will be messy. If it is in Whitton that will also be difficult. Agree about sneakiness of Council -seems desperate to pick off the primaries and make them be academies.

I don't see how Trafalgar's catchment would be served by Turing House moving its Admissions Point a mile closer to Teddington, however. If TH ended up in Whitton Tragalgar pupils would probably not be among the 20% taken locally to the site, either. Which might still overlap with the intended catchment for REEC or Twickenham Academy, whichever end it is. Is TH going to consult again on that point after the site is confirmed?

I don't think you can assume that local MATs will automatically prioritise admissions for their own primaries, though of course they'd have the right to do that. (If Waldegrave were to prioritise admissions for Nelson pupils then that would have interesting consequences for Nelson's demographic, and a corresponding impact on TA!).

Nor can you assume the Sheen MAT would be a blue-print for future MATs on the Mddx side of the borough any time soon, though it may be an aspiration in the longer term. The secondary provision is more fractured over here, with a girls' school and two schools using Kunskapskollan's KED curriculum (which might make it more complex for TA/HA to migrate across). As you point out, the greater proportion of church primaries would complicate matters too, though less so if they open up their admissions in the future - it's hard to imagine the local CE primaries teaming up with Christs and/or Bishop Wand (which takes a lot of CE admissions from the Mddx side of the borough) in anything other than an administrative capacity.

Things will evolve though, with new primaries in the pipeline, and the small-medium sized local MAT model is one that is favoured by the Audit Commission, so is likely to become a feature of the landscape in coming years.

TH's Admissions Point for 2016+ is based on proximity to other secondaries, not primaries, and as the consultation report said "All responses [were] considered in the light of the information that was public at the time, and our anticipated permanent site location [was] taken into account in any decisions, as [was] the relative need for places in the area of the site. .... Both the current admissions point and the new proposed one serve the original, existing and future area of demand. The original determination of its location, while simple to understand, put the point disproportionately close to one of the mixed secondary schools in the authority and might potentially have a correspondingly greater impact on its admissions. In the interests of fairness, and taking into account the proposed location of other approved free schools, RET has therefore decided to move the admissions point to the new location for admissions from 2016 onwards".

Like any other school, once TH is open it will need to keep its admissions policy under review, and consult on any future changes.

I didn't suggest the secondaries would prioritise admissions for linked primaries - but if the curriculum was aligned it might encourage greater transfer.

Christ's isn't going to convert to academy status so it wouldn't be in a MAT. It's 50/50 foundation to community admissions ensures priority for Queens and Holy Trinity but very few come from Middlesex as foundation places are undersubscribed. However, as you say Archdeacon C and St Mary's and St Peter's have access to Bishop Wand, as well as StRR, Twyford and the Green School , and many are choosing selective privates too.

Also, is the 'mixed secondary school' that TH's admissions point was too close to Twickenham Academy? And is the 'new free school' it might be close to REEC or Kingston Academy? Hampton Wick pupils can access Kingston easily so again, the feeder primary pupils to Teddington actually amount to fewer than nine forms.

On the other hand, a catchment isn't always a perfect circle around a centre point.

"Christ's isn't going to convert to academy status so it wouldn't be in a MAT"

Not unilaterally, but if the CE Diocese was to coordinate the formation of a MAT (like the RC Diocese has done), then I wouldn't be surprised if they looked at it again.

"but very few come from Middlesex as foundation places are undersubscribed"

Christs' historic under-subscription isn't widely known about, and I suspect that if those places are still under-subscribed (anyone know for 2014?) they won't be for long now that the linked school policy has been dropped and people are finding it harder to get into other secondaries.

Also their foundation-place policy used to prioritise certain parishes on the Surrey side of the borough, and still now has a distance element to it, which disadvantages families in the south of the Borough.

"However, as you say Archdeacon C and St Mary's and St Peter's have access to Bishop Wand, as well as StRR, Twyford and the Green School , and many are choosing selective privates too"

The numbers doing that have increased since the linked-school policy was dropped - for the most part families are putting those schools as lower preference to Teddington/Orleans Park/Waldegrave (although of course not in all cases). A good/outstanding local community school will generally be more popular than a commute to a distant faith school of similar quality, even for families at CE primaries.

"is the 'mixed secondary school' that TH's admissions point was too close to Twickenham Academy?"

This consultation question made that clear: "We propose moving the admissions point to another location more equally distant from other mixed schools in the vicinity.(The current point is located much closer to Twickenham Academy than to any of the other mixed schools in the west of the Borough). Do you agree with this relocation of the admissions point?"

"And is the 'new free school' it might be close to REEC or Kingston Academy?"

I didn't say it was close to a new free school. The 2015 admissions point was constructed using a method that will be undermined by the creation of a fifth community secondary on the Middlesex side of the borough. The new point is independent of the location of any new secondaries, unless they happen to be closer than 2237m, which is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

"On the other hand, a catchment isn't always a perfect circle around a centre point."

Exactly. Given the popularity of Teddington I wouldn't expect its catchment to be much impacted by TH's admissions point (or the establishment of KA for that matter). And given the location of Bushy Park, TH's catchment is very unlikely to be circular. That is why the consultation report says: "Both the current admissions point and the new proposed one serve the original, existing and future area of demand".

BayJay Christ's admission figures under the foundation/open criteria are published every year - for example the 2014 offers were 43 foundation and 80 open. So church places as a proportion have actually gone down - I made a note of 2013 admissions and it was 56 foundation and 55 open. Yet church places are still available (before extra community places are offered) up to 10 km away.

Perhaps if it gets an outstanding rating while Orleans Park gets demoted, more Twickenham families will be prepared to bus it a little further.

That's certainly an example of an open catchment where the admissions point is no longer in the centre. It's also the nearest option for Sheen Mount and Marshgate, as well as Darell - not to mention Deer Park School - and the 50% non-church allocation at Holy Trinity. It wouldn't serve the majority of those primaries well as an academy as opposed to how it does at present when virtually all are LA maintained (apart from 'cuckoo' Deer Park).

Yes, the figures are published, but I'm not sure they're on many people's radar. They haven't needed to be in the past because of the linked school policy, but people are now casting their nets further afield.

And don't forget 2014 was the first admissions round without the linked school policy. It caught some people by surprise, whereas families have had longer to prepare for 2015 and beyond (e.g. to start going to church regularly if they didn't previously).

"And don't forget 2014 was the first admissions round ..."

Ok, second. Time flies!

Tempus fugit indeed! The link policy made little difference to the Surrey side although may have ringfenced places at Grey Court and Orleans Park that excluded Marshgate and Vineyard. The potential loser was Darell which had a link with Grey Court, but following GC's Ofsted report and jump in popularity it would have been crowded out by nearer linked Ham/Kingston primaries (around 10 forms of entry) and its pupils would have had to compete with their pupils on distance potentially leading to loss of link anyway.

The figures I gave were excluding siblings. Including siblings the offers were:

2014: 50 foundation, 116 open (= 30% church)
2013: 62 foundation, 95 open (= 39% church)

Also between those years St Elizabeth pupils, who did have priority at Christ's, are now choosing StRR.

Dealings in Malaysia by a company linked to a Bellevue Education director seems to be causing controversy.

BayJay I see that Turing House's head has been acting as executive headteacher of RET's ecumenical Christian school in Hove. Do you know if the deputy Mrs Mackinlay is his wife or a namesake (or is it Mr Mackinlay/ a misprint)?

Yes, he stepped into the exec head role in June when the incumbent head became ill and had to step down. I can't answer the other question (you could email the school I suppose, but it might be considered a bit too personal to get an answer). It's not a misprint though as CM's interim role at Kings ended in December.

If both were there permanently it would be a legitimate enquiry - more relevant here in Richmond, obviously. Parents probably wouldn't care but teachers could be put in an uncomfortable position with a husband and wife team in senior management. It has complicated governance at the Cuckoo Hall trust with the executive head married to a director after both were suspended following a whistleblower allegation. But this sounds like a temporary arrangement for both individuals even if they are related.