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!

Hello ladies, I am surprised not to have had more chat here last night. I was very concerned to receive the message that we had not received a first wave offer from Turing House, but ultimately delighted that DS has received a place at St Richard Reynolds which was our first choice.

There's some Rtt coverage on offer day here: m.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/11828287.Secondary_school_offer_letters_out_today___did_your_child_get_in_/

Kingston Guardian here. They are actually the top borough in London for proportion getting one of top three preferences. Would like to know how Grey Court applicants in Richmond did this year. I bet the number of Wandsworth applicants has squeezed RPA too but Turing House isn't going to help on the Surrey side.

Two recent LBRuT press releases:

Council provides facts about Primary School offers, 27/02/15:

Richmond Council can confirm that all families, who applied by the deadline, were offered a primary school place by the start of the 2014 new term, despite claims made in a local flyer produced by Vincent Cable MP.

In a local community update, Dr Cable MP claimed that the Council was “the only borough in the country that failed to offer a school pace by the start of term to all children with on-time applications.” The Council can confirm that at the start of the September 2014 term, all those families who applied by the 15 January were offered a placement. Of those, 80% were offered a place at their first preference primary school – a rise of 4% on the previous year.

Cllr Paul Hodgins, said: Richmond upon Thames has the best primary schools in the country, and therefore demand is very high. We continue to strive to ensure that we have enough quality places across the borough. Indeed, we have already added 18 forms of entry, or over 500 permanent reception places and we have recently updated our long term school places strategy that will add up to another 21 forms of entry over the next 10 years.
……..
Richmond secures a further £8.3m to put towards school places investment, 20/02/15:

Richmond Council has welcomed an £8.3m allocation from Government which will go a little way to helping the authority pay for the school expansion programme in the borough.

The Department for Education has allocated the money to support the provision of new primary school places in areas where they are needed. The total Council investment needed to deliver the long term primary schools expansion programme, within the Capital Programme, is estimated at £50m. This is part of a wider educational investment programme, where the Council is planning on spending nearly £120m from its Capital budget . .

Here are the cut-off distances from our offer letter:

Christs - Open places criterion 4 2372m
Grey Court - 3243m
Hampton Academy - All preferences met
Orleans Park - 1691m
RPA - 2571m
SRR - Random allocation within criterion 2
Teddington - 2487m
Twickenham Academy - All preferences met
Waldegrave - Area A 1644m and Area B 5190m

Today’s LBRuT press release: Offer day - secondary school places announced, 03/03/2015:

Over 1,742 Richmond upon Thames parents were sent secondary school offers for their children on Monday 2 March. The number of applicants is over 100 more than previous years. 67% of applicants will receive a first preference offer, and 86% will receive an offer at one of their first three preferences. In London, parents express preferences for secondary schools both inside and outside the borough in which they live, making them far more likely to be oversubscribed than in other parts of England. All applicants who applied by the deadline have received an offer of a place.

Cllr Paul Hodgins, Cabinet Member for Schools at Richmond Council, said: . . “Two-thirds of our students have been offered a place at their first preference of school. With the increase in applicants this year this is a little below where it was last year, and there will be considerable movement on the lists over the next few months. So it's not the end of the story for those who have not initially received their first preference. However, I want the first preference number to be higher in future years, and this will be done by increasing choice further and seeing further improvements across our schools.

. . “We always knew that this year would be a bit tighter than previous years. But we have enough places for demand at this stage. Nevertheless, we are doing our utmost to help the Education Funding Agency find a site to enable Turing House Free School to open this September . . We are also progressing plans for a new secondary school on the Richmond College site in 2017. With this added choice and continued performance improvements our schools are set to become even more popular over the next few years.”

2014/2013 cut-off distances in brackets for comparison. I don't see a black hole in Barnes/Sheen, looking at Christ's places, but parents may have put RPA too low down.

Christ's - Open places 4,2372m (3,085/2,193)
Grey Court - 3,243m (2,881/3,833)
Orleans Park - 1,691m (2,099/2,032)
Teddington - 2,487m (2,073/2,073)
Waldegrave - Area A 1,644m (1,828/2,253) and Area B 5,190m (5,546/5,672)

Did you have offer numbers too, BayJay?

Sorry, some families near Lowther in Barnes would have been further than RPA's cut-off. I hope that those in need get a place from the waiting list - many go private in that area.

No Muminlondon, there aren't any offer numbers in the letter.

Bayjay does the letter indicate if the random allocation for SRR was in criterion 2a or 2b? 2a being practicing Catholics with a supportive reference living in the 12 parishes that make up the London Borough of Richmond, as opposed to those living outside LBRUT.

It doesn't say.

2b is actually baptised catholics from non-practising families within LBRuT. (I think I may know someone who got in under this criterion)

2c is the out-borough Catholic criterion.

Shame they didn't at least get to criterion 3. Has any Catholic school explained why they divide up children in care into Catholic and non-Catholic? I've just finished reading a Patrick Modiano novel about a Jewish girl who was protected for a while in a Catholic convent school in Paris (though it didn't end well ...). I'd like to think they could still be a haven for orphaned refugees of all religions.

I know a few who are in on the SRR 2b criteria

Thanks Bayjay I thought there were 2 subsets of category 2 and I knew we fell into the first of those, I'm quite happy to be corrected. I am not aware of any other children from DS's out of borough primary who are going, although a neighbour from the same school was going to apply (I haven't heard their offer).

We are the second house in from the borough boundary and didn't get a place at a Catholic borough primary in 2008 when DS started school.

Muminlondon, one particularly negative effect that I've seen of schools distinguishing between RC and non-RC looked-after children is that it can put unacceptable pressure on RC in-care applicants to produce baptism certificates as evidence and, where that proves too difficult due to a chaotic background, letters from priests.

Just to put some detail on those cut-off distances, I've heard that Tennyson Ave and Clifden Rd fell just outside of Waldegrave's initial offers (which include 16 extra places this year, so that's a significant shrinkage).

I haven't (yet) heard of anyone on the Twick Green side of Heath Rd bridge getting Orleans Park, and waiting list placements vary from 20ish halfway up the Green to 50ish in the Meadway area.

Teddington's numbers are interesting because the cut-off is further than last year. Perhaps they are one of the two schools where the bulge classes have been planned (pure speculation though).

For info there were some members questions related to school place planning at this week's full council meeting, see agenda item 7 on the webcast here: www.richmond.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/164621

I'm thinking that Kingston Academy eased Teddington and Grey Court a little, but unfortunately GC not enough to go much further beyond Richmond Hill. There was a bulge class at Vineyard, some of whom were around East Twickenham (so concentrating catchment at OP), and Tiffin Girls took an extra class. Some N Kingston pupils may have switched from Teddington including boys (Coombe Boys now also outstanding I think?).

Hagen't seen the cut-off distances for Kingston, but intetestingly there are KA offers as far out as Fulwell (not as far as it sounds though, because they measured distance as the crow flies)

Hagen't seen the cut-off distances for Kingston, but intetestingly there are KA offers as far out as Fulwell (not as far as it sounds though, because they measured distance as the crow flies)

Familes on Waldegrave Rd (near St Mary's) getting Grey Court, but high on the Teddington waiting list.

Today's print RTT has Pupils face hour-long journey in places pinch (p 5) and two letters (p 23): School site from D Collins and Far from free from David R Grice.

The proposers of Deer Park School have announced a new consultation which will deal with 'the impact of the building on the environment and surrounding areas, rather than the design of the building' which is open until 20 March. On that day there will be a discussion at 1pm chaired by Zac Goldsmith:

Questions/issues raised by letters in the RTT include:

Why were residents not told about the last consultation until a week before the end?
Why is it being rushed through in such haste despite being so close to three existing schools, one of which has only just expanded?
Why is it on a main road at a busy roundabout next to a petrol station?
Why is the playground going to be in a cage on the roof?
How does the lack of outside space and its position on the road fit in with recent Commons environmental audit committee recommendations about schools?
Why is it called Deer Park School when it isn't near Old Deer Park or Richmond Park?

etc.

Does anybody know how far down the waiting list Orleans Park went last year? anyone publish cut off distances post when waiting list places are allocated? really want to know whether to apply to OP next year but am around 1800m from school