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!

Interesting that new guidance has been published for free schools in the pre-opening phase (e.g. Turing House, GEMS, Bellevue Place's Richmond Bridge Primary). It seems the approval decision is to be devolved to new regional schools commissioners increasingly from March 2015 onwards, advised by 'a board of around six headteachers of outstanding academies or experienced educational leaders' - whoever they may be! Perhaps if they are working for chains like Harris, AET, GEMS (not that GEMS UK's expertise is proven) they could be making decisions affecting competitors? And no democratic accountability to councils or parents either.

Anyway, the Green Party is asking questions about the transparency of the process while the other parties seem to be sleeping - although who knows what further changes will happen after the election. I wonder if this has prompted Turing to bring forward their consultation on admissions before the site is announced?

Muminlondon, those structures are already in place, with their responsibilities gradually increasing over time. See section 1.23 in your link: "From September 2014 to March 2015, RSCs will make recommendations to ministers about actions to take on free school projects at the pre-opening stage, with ministers making the final decisions....".

Twickerati has School Site Scrap? with several links:

There’s nothing quite like planning committees and schools to get people all hot under the collar in Twickenham. That whole ‘neck / collar interface’ is getting decidedly warm near Twickenham Green as one of the recently approved free schools seeks to turn an office block into its new primary school . .

And if that’s not enough for you, on the other side of town, the proposed Lidl supermarket on Richmond Road in East Twickenham is creating angst among those who believe another of the newly approved schools may have missed out on a suitable location . .

Can't Archdeacon Cambridge just do the community minded thing - increase the number of local/community places and take more bulge classes? When did it last have a bulge class? If it's got a footprint three times the big of this site perhaps it's got a bit of space in which to put a portakabin - it would still be better option than a cramped office block in a congested area, run by a provider with no track record in the state sector (and by some accounts a poor track record in the independent sector).

Although the latest is that the application has been 'withdrawn by the applicant'!

AC did take a bulge class a couple of years back, though the LA funded a new permanent classroom for that. The word is that it can't have portacabins onsite because they're in a conservation area.

If anyone fancies adding some informed opinion to the uninformed on Twickerati I am sure it will help the debate

I am fairly familiar with the AC site and there isn't much unused space. The strip of land at the back of the site has a number of big trees that are probably protected and are part of the nature area which is very well used. Of course it's all single storey whereas Heathgate House isn't. AC could be rebuilt double storey to be larger but that would be costly!

Do u think GEMS have withdrawn from this site because of objections or given up altogether? Seems odd given they've just had an open evening.

May be a temporary withdrawal, pending adjustments.

The applicant must be the EFA - do you think they've actually bought this site before getting the LA or local residents on board? It's happened before at Stoke Poges for the Sikh school but the govt has imposed its mighty will. That'll go down well.

EFA is indeed the applicant.

Oh no, battle not over for Stoke Poges residents and council - they're going to the High Court:

academiesweek.co.uk/councils-take-court-action-on-free-school/

I can't imagine the traffic and parking problems in Stoke Poges are as bad as in Colne Road whatever the residents of SP think!

Oops - and GEMS offloads another unprofitable private school that has dwindled in numbers ever since it took over.

There's now a Wikipedia entry on GEMS which pointed out something else I didn't know - it did, through a company called 3E, have direct influence over 3 state schools in Surrey but that ended up as an embarrassment when one of them was graded inadequate.

In other news, Collis primary was inspected by Ofsted this week. It will be interesting to see what the result is. Their last inspection was in 2008 or so.

Does anyone have news about the Turing site? Temporary and/or permanent?

Interesting article on the success of non-native speakers of English in London. This backs up Bristol university research suggesting that immigrants are part of London schools' success story.

Looking at the newly published performance tables for primary schools in Richmond, while this isn't true across the board, many individual schools follow the trend (percentage of EAL speakers in brackets - LA average is 20%):

Stanley (22%)
Bishop Perrin (43%)
St Elizabeth's (40%)
The Vineyard (21%)
Heathfield (40%)
Holy Trinity (30%)
St Edmund's (22%)
Buckingham (29%)

However, this is only on the 'level 4' measure and there may be very odd fluctuations where the proportion of EAL speakers is smaller. For example, at St Mary's in Twickenham, EAL performed 18% below an otherwise very high average, but there is a much smaller number of EAL speakers (13%).

And note that Collis has so few EAL speakers - although a very high proportion attaining level (93%) - that this statistic is not given because it would identify the 4 out of 90 pupils with EAL.

I think the Fair Admissions Campaign might want to rethink its 'heat map'. It's too blunt as measure of diversity because it can be high in Catholic schools with many European pupils. And it now seems to be an advantage to be able to select a high proportion of bilingual pupils in schools, compared to community schools in poorer white working class areas.

Foursquare, latest news (from Dec 1st) is on the Turing House website here.

Sorry, from that roll call I have missed off five schools where 100% of EAL speakers achieved level 4:

Barnes Primary (25%)
Chase Bridge (12%)
East Sheen (11%)
Kew Riverside (38%)
St Osmund's (29%)

Thanks BayJay2, I saw that one. I guess I meant the locations - if they were disclosed to the public or not - but I guess they weren't yet.

Nope, best place to be is on the Mailing List if you want the news as soon as it is announced.

Today’s RTT has three letters (p 18): ‘Take note of the alternatives’, two are letters re the traffic problems that will be be caused by the Egerton Road development - gridlock on Whitton Road; the third, ‘School site not suitable’, from the Labour parliamentary candidate, Nick Grant, is about the Heathgate House free school.

Two items re Heathgate House:

An email confirming that the HH application has been withdrawn. Instead they plan to meet the planners in January and to prepare a ‘full application’.

The planners’ ‘Reason for taking no further action on application’.

'No reference to the likely cumulative impact of surrounding schools'. I read this as the impact on surrounding schools - what if the school fails as Nick Grant (Labour candidate) pointed out? The likelihood is high given past record, and turnover of directors.

But if it's related to the travel plan, there are another five years before the full impact on St RR on the surrounding transport services will be known. I wonder if this could be considered as a split site? Or temporary site pending a permanent one? It might work for Turing House for the first year.

"I read this as the impact on surrounding schools ..."

In a Planning document? No. It will relate to the travel plan.

Sullivan primary in Fulham, which nearly got closed to make way for a free school, has topped the H&F borough primary league table for results at L4. Against Richmond schools it would have come 4th overall and top for disadvantaged pupils.

Fulham Boys' School opened in temporary premises in 2014.