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!

What effect do you think Kingston Academy has had muminlondon? I've been told by a parent from SMSP that the Teddington catchment has shrunk back even nearer to the school in Teddington and not many on the SMSP side of the railway have been offered places this year. It's always an odd shape due to being next to the river so people who are very geographically near on the Kingston side are too far away by road. There have only been a handful of children coming from Kingston in recent years - I think it was about 5 on the 2014 admissions map.

The cut-off distances this year compared to previous years are:

Grey Court - 3,243m (2,881/3,833)
Teddington - 2,487m (2,073/2,073)

If Kingston Academy gave offers up to Fulwell but still had 700 applications from Kingston alone, that's a good chance, no? There's also more from Teddington going to the dark side to Grey court.

We also know all on-time applicants were offered a place. While some schools may have over-offered, if that's also true of Teddington its catchment area would have been wider or as wide as before. So if it didn't over-offer there will still be waiting list movement but potentially also in conjunction with lists at Kingston Academy and Grey Court. Meanwhile so many Kingston pupils got what they wanted that I suspect there will be surplus places there and maybe even waiting list chances with catchment priority at Tiffin as the girls school has more places and statistically higher proportion possibly getting in on waiting list. Maybe that depends on private schools and how many choose them.

Muminlondon, very few people on the Mddx side of the river knew TKA existed, never mind that they stood a chance of a place this year, so I suspect there'll only be a very small number of offers held on this side of the borough. Similarly, not many people know that the Grey Court catchment extends a short distance over the river (they haven't needed to know in the past, because Teddington was more accessible), so the numbers applying there are also likely to be low.

It was a big vote of confidence that TKA got so many applications from Kingston, but if most of those applicants got higher preferences then that would have left room for preferences to be met from further away.

Of course without the offer numbers, it's difficult to interpret any apparent increases in catchment.

That's interesting as perception seems to be that it's harder to get into Teddington this year. This suggests TH will get more people from Fulwell and Twickenham . Hopefully this is the last year with all this uncertainty and people will have more idea where they stand in future.

That's right, only two lone dots on the Grey Court map from Teddington (and there's movement from the other side too). But chances are pretty good.

In a way I'm surprised the Teddington bridge counts as an access route to Grey Court, because the woodland on the other side isn't well lit in winter. Or am I missing something?

@BayJay2: You're right it's not well lit - as an adult I felt slightly nervous whenever I had to cross the bridge in the evening. I would definitely not want my child to walk to/from school on that path, not daily. Perhaps some children take the bus via Kingston - it makes for a long journey though.

Would that be similar to expecting children to use the paths in Crane Park to get to Twickenham Academy - or even REEC? Nearer to houses but there have been stabbings round there. Mind you, there was a stabbing on the street near the College too.

I don't think Ham is that bad but it's hard to get a bike over the bridge.

Is it not fair to assume that given Waldegrave and Orleans have added 16places (increased class sizes generating revenue to help match rising costs?) that Teddington's may well have done too? That and TKA would explain the bigger catchment

I used to see the St James's boys row across the river when they were on the Radnor site and then walk along the towpath, I assume not in winter though!

Growing up round here I remember when Teddington was all boys and if you wanted co-ed it was Orleans or Grey Court. There was a constant stream of pupils cycling over the lock and the start and end of each day from Teddington to Grey Court. The lock became the pace to hang out on summer evenings with lots of swimming in the river and diving off the bridge!

I'm just picturing the Monty Python fish slapping sketch which was filmed at Teddington lock...

There's certainly lots of jumping in the river in Crane Park in the Summer months! These days you'd probably get a very stern caution, if not arrested, for jumping into the Thames :-)

Well, looks like the funding agreements for both GEMS Twickenham Primary Academy and Deer Park School (see last page second paragraph) have actually been signed after all.

Just the tricky hurdles of planning permission, attracting applications and gaining the trust of the community convincing parents of their track record to overcome. Election purdah cut-off looms, panic ensues and democratic consultation goes out of the window. I wonder if there are conditions, such as actually having a certain number of places accepted?

There are quite a lot of children from Ham crossing over Teddington Lock to Teddington each day and a few going the other way. A couple of children from my daughter's year at Collis were recommended to go to Grey Court for the good dyslexia provision at Newman House. Lots of people go for a look and are seriously impressed by Maggie Bailey and the amount of green space Grey Court has compared to Teddington but it's not easy to tell your child they are going to be separated from all their friends so not many actually put it as a higher preference.

I am pretty amazed that Deer Park School was allowed to show it had support by saying it was Richmond Bridge School opening in East Twickenham where parents were desperate for a local primary then to pretend that all those who expressed interest/applied still want to go now it's in a totally different location. I suppose lots of parents will have accepted places as they have no other offer at present but won't be intending to stay there longer term.

That's interesting. I found the link to Deer Park School's recruitment pack through Google, but it contains a mistake and calls the school Halley House School on p.3. They seem to have corrected that on the attachment to the advert (though it's a PDF so copies can get saved). I hope they don't muddle up the children like they muddle up their templates.

On a lighter note, look at this: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31998343

And we think competition is bad here?

It feels a bit like like country run by a mafia here though. That Hewett School in Norfolk I mentioned has been slapped with an academy order (for a trust controlled by a Conservative donor/DfE board director) and there hasn't even been a consultation yet - despite 2,000 signatures against it.

LProsser the deadline for applications hasn't even ended yet, let alone places offered.

Lots of stuff going through before purdah.

I blame Tristram Hunt. He said that any Free Schools already set up would not be closed by a Labour Government some months ago so of course there is lots of "facts on the Ground" being created.

Regarding minimum numbers. There will be a minimum number in the funding agreement with a cut off date by which the proposers have to tell the DfE that they are really sure they will get that number...

So actually the school is pretty well guranteed to open, with the school being funded in the first year on the basis of an estimate by the School of how many children they will have. The estimate being replaced by the actual figures during the year.

UNLESS the numbers are really low and Bellevue Place decide to pull out as they would have to fund a deficit in one school by raiding the funds of the others....

(It used to be that they were funded for the first TWO years on the basis of their PAN rather than actual numbers, but this has been stopped. It accounted, apart from anything else for some Free Schools imploding after two years...)

mum - I've forgotten anything I ever knew about applying to primary school! I suppose Deer Park will get at least 30 applications quite easily and be able to say there's overwhelming support even though applicants take up places at other schools.

Agree about the undemocratic way these academy sponsors are being imposed.

So we might see the location moving, we might see a temporary school that closes after a year, there might be a mass bake sale to buy Ryde House. Anything could happen. Did Tristram Hunt say anything about changing planning laws for new schools or regulations about them being next to congested roads? It's portakabins-R-us whatever happens.

Yet more delays for the REEC free school in Twickenham.

The outline planning application was due at the end of February and according to the Rich and Twick today it has now been postponed until May.

This planning submission has slipped more times in the last 18 months than I care to count. Surely it is no longer credible to expect the new secondary school to open in its permanent new building on the site, as has been promised all along?

The public meeting they have just announced to drum up support for the REEC planning application looks like more smoke and mirrors to hide what is going on. They really must start to get their act together otherwise there are going to be a great number of disappointed parent and pupils.

Tw2dad, that may just be purdah-related. They're seeking their funding agreement but will now have to wait until after the election for it to be signed off.

For info, there was a status report on the project at the most recent cabinet meeting (see item 139).

It's hard to tell whether it will be business-as-usual-but-without-the-political-bit at the EFA during purdah, or whether some of their processes will grind to a halt. They may be anticipating some restructuring after the election, and following the end-of-term parties no doubt some staff will be taking the opportunity to play civil service musical chairs move on.

Sounds like it's a really complicated process for legal negotiations on the site and leases, funding from different sources for three different education establishments on one site, EU procurement rules which keep changing. You can't skimp on any of that although clearly we need the school(s) to open on time. It's on a different level of transparency and consultation compared to the Deer Park free school, possibly because there's still an LA school involved and different regulations (am I right that Clarendon will still be a local authority SEN school?).

This week’s print RTT has three school stories: Battle for sports ground (p 4); Find out more about college site (p 5); and School site tensions (p 7).

There are also full page ads for the 6th forms of RPA and Orleans (pp 27 & 29).

Press Release from Deer Park: Deer Park School . . has announced its Headteacher Designate. Alison Colenso will be joining Deer Park School from Lowther Primary School in Barnes in May, where she has been Deputy Head for four years . . Prospective families with children due to start school this September and beyond will have the opportunity to meet Alison at the school’s Open Events, which will be held on Friday 17th April from 5.30pm - 7.00pm and 7.00pm - 8.30pm at Richmond Adult Community College, Parkshot, Richmond TW9 2RE.