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!

It doesn't look the staff recruited so far at GEMS primary have taught in the state sector or have a PGCE/QTS. Each school presents a different risk.

The Chelsea tractors debate has started up again on Whitton Village FB page also something called Whitton "ning" which is referred to.

With ref to the REEC school do u think the Council has all the money needed yet? If not i expect that's why they aren't hurrying so can do lots of consultation.

From BayJay's link it comes in chunks for different purposes at different times - I think they've got the Clarendon build costs agreed by DfE grant in principle but need to get the actual costs in; the College build comes from the London Enterprise Panel in stages; a portion but not all of the actual land purchase costs come from the EFA, as do free school build costs (which they've been having to negotiate up to the right level); and the rest from sale of current Clarendon site and borrowing, and the housing development bit starts later. You'd need to go to the consultation meetings.

We have discussed before that it would have been useful to parents, especially those on the Surrey side who have no other offer but Twickenham Academy which they have now agreed with the Council is not practically accessible for an 11 year old, if the Council had released the information on offers that they released with offers last year. i861.photobucket.com/albums/ab179/ChrisSquire/LBRUT_secondary_offer_2014-1.jpg It would enable parents to know where the extra places were put to meet increased demand, so far we know that there were extra places at Waldegrave and Orleans, that Teddington catchment increased and that a number of places at TA were being offered to Barnes, Mortlake and Kew parents, suggesting all the extra places were on the Middlesex side?

Well the Council clearly do not want this information in the public domain because they have I gather refused a Freedom of Information Request. The grounds are that it will be released in the Secondary Admission Brochure that will be published in September and that that will meet the public interest requirement. To release it to one person and of course the whole of the Mumsnet thread readership and beyond would "be unfair"

Detailed Legal reasoning for refusal

We consider this information is exempt under Section 22; information intended for future publication.

This information will be published on the Council’s website on 1 September 2015. The information was held with the intention to disclose it when your request was received and as the publication date is in the near future we consider it reasonable to not publish the information prior to this date. Therefore we consider that section 22 in engaged.

Public interest test

I have established that the information you have requested comes under the exemption stated above. Therefore I have gone on to consider the public interest test.

Public interest arguments in favour of disclosure

I acknowledge that there is strong public interest in the general principles of transparency and accountability. More specifically there is a public interest in understanding how school place offers have been allocated which is why it is published in the Secondary Admissions Brochure.

Public interest arguments in favour of maintaining the exemption

There is a public interest in the Council being able to publish information on school place offers in a planned and managed way. As the information affects all parents with children looking for school places, to disclose the information in response to individual FOI requests prior to publication would not be fair.

This argument was upheld in the ICO decision FS50515783. The Commissioner accepted that there was a strong argument in favour of allowing everyone to view this information at the same time. Moreover they found that the release of information to individual requesters in response to FOI on varying occasions could result in partial information being released over a protracted period leading to confusion and inaccuracy. As in this case there was a clear rationale on when the information would be disclosed to the public. Therefore we find that there is a public interest in ensuring the public have access to this information at same time.

Although I recognise there is a public interest in providing this information under the general principles of transparency and accountability I have taken into consideration that the information is due to be published in the near future and to disclose the information prior to this would impact on the planned and managed disclosure of school place offers within the Secondary Admission Brochure. I therefore find the public interest in weighted in favour of maintaining this exemption.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

So this information was released with the offers last year and hasn't been released with the offers this year? I don't see how that can be justified and I don't think 1st September is particularly soon given we are talking about a crucial few months. Obviously if they released this to an individual under FoI they could also at the same time make the same information available on their website to everyone so that argument seems nonsense. I don't understand why they can't give a provisional update to people anyway and amend it as things change and they go along. They could also say how much the waiting list actually moved last year by the beginning of term to give people who are currently very low down an idea of whether it's worth holding out before buying the uniform. In the meantime misinformation is floating about e.g. you are saying the Teddington catchment has increased but on the ground they are saying it has shrunk - who knows?! Applicant should appeal!

Are you saying LB Richmond has formally agreed that it's unreasonable for a child from Barnes to go to TA? That would have big implications.

So I understand Lottie but whether that was empathising with a parent who was saying that they are not prepared to put their 11 year old child through, as I understand it, a two bus , with a walk between connections as well as each end, journey, or whether they formally accept that they have not met their obligation by making that offer I don't know.

I sympathise with parents offered Twickenham Academy from Barnes.

But we don't know anything about Turing House application numbers for this round of admissions. At the same time, I don't blame them for not releasing that yet either because there are still uncertainties. They are a state school too covered by the same FOI obligations. Did the requestor also ask for information on Turing House?

If not, I do not think it is fair to expect Richmond Council to release that data yet unless/until Turing House releases the data about offers and acceptances.

Because most people are holding two offers until they know the TH site information. And while many of them might have offers at TA - which would be the number one reason for over-offering - some might have offers at Orleans Park, Christ's or Waldegrave which would in turn move the waiting lists that most affect Surrey pupils.

Similarly, I do not expect the council to release data on primary school applications unless there is full transparency from Deer Park and GEMS.

Surely if TH is outside the main admissions process and everyone has an offer of a non free school place if I can put it like that, then it's still valid to publish the current state of play? People will know there is likely to be more movement because of TH and a lot of it is likely to be from TA where there are probably not many people sitting on the waiting list anyway. The situation could be updated once TH has announced its sites. Presumably there will be a deadline for parents to accept or reject TH and their other state school offer?

Primary a bit more complicated but only a couple of schools outside the main admissions process.

then it's still valid to publish the current state of play?

No it isn't. I'd say because of the following:

1. Last year it must have been fairly clear to the LA that there was (a) no site (b) no sign of a finished consultation or funding agreement for Turing House. This year the funding agreement has been signed. It's different.
2. All the secondaries in Richmond are academies apart from the VA schools which still operate their own admissions policies. The LA coordinates the admissions process but it is up to individual schools as to how many places they offer. It's really unfair to blame the LA for this.
3. By 1 September it can collate the data from Turing House and include that with the other data from its own process for the next admissions brochure. By that time things will be clearer for TH. All info published together without unfairly prejudicing some schools that are not even under LA's control.
4. If it is giving information to individuals about waiting lists then that is the most helpful thing to do in individual circumstances, not a full FOI request on most but not all schools.
5. If places have been offered to all on-time applicants and TH has offered PAN, there will be at least 150 vacancies appearing in one go, something the LA has no control over. You can't expect the waiting lists not to move. So it's too early for this information to be given.
6. Not all LAs even publish all this information in their admissions brochure so Richmond is still very transparent.

If you notice for primary, they do not include cut-off distances or application numbers for the church schools in the admissions brochure even where they are 90% inclusive.

With a school as contentious as Deer Park it could be unfairly prejudicing other schools and handing it a market advantage to release this information early. If current education policy has reduced us to a dog-eat-dog market, this is what happens. Transparency and fair admissions only work if all subscribe to those principles.

from the Teddington Town site:

Community bid for sports grounds
teddingtontown.co.uk/2015/03/30/community-bid-for-sports-grounds/

Gosh, interesting Heathcliff.

Muminlondon, just to correct you on a couple of things. TH are working closely with the LA on admissions, so the LA do know the numbers (and indeed names etc) for TH too. I agree the info should be released together though.

Also, the LA were as surprised as anyone that TH didn't open last year. The only reason funding agreements are being signed early this year is because of changes to the process, and of course the election - in previous years many weren't signed until July/August.

Also, as it says here the TH PAN will be 100 until it moves to its permanent site.

mum I agree with Lottie that from the point of view of parents there really is no good reason not to be sharing this information (including for Turing) as they did last year now when it can help parents who do not have the offer of their local /preferred school to judge their options. There are a lot of worried and anxious parents out there and reassuring them that the lists should move the 40 to 80 places necessary on an individual basis with no context is not helping their worry and uncertainty I can assure you. In any case information is emerging in dribs and drabs (Waldegrave, Orleans, Teddington gossip, adverts for additional teachers for TA ) Having the complete picture would be a lot fairer for those parents facing uncertainty.

Of course what has changed is that this was the first year that the pupil bulge pushed past the offers they could make, and so there had to be contingencies in place. There is no precedent for the effect those arrangements will have on waiting lists, especially since the over offering last year was in itself unprecedented and led to waiting lists moving more slowly. Maybe the 100 places at Turing will free up places further east or maybe it will free up places for people who are hanging on those waiting lists for a place at Orleans who did not get Turing and are keeping indie places as insurance (evidence of that elsewhere on these threads) I think it is reasonable that LBRUT should be open and transparent about where the extra offers were made. The only reason not to do so as far as I can see is that whatever plan was put in place was politically motivated rather than driven by demand.........

I also cannot see any good reason why AET would not have wanted to work with LBRUT to add potential bulge places at RPA, once they knew that demand had increased to a similar extent to last year., it wasn't exactly unprecedented. Apart from it making things more financially secure given the undersubscribed older year groups, RPA have been working incredibly hard to build up relationships with the local Primaries, and it is not good for them that so many parents in those Primaries now feel misled.

I think it is reasonable that LBRUT should be open and transparent about where the extra offers were made.

The schools made the offers, not LBRuT. The additional admissions route for free schools resulting in two offers really is a backwards step in terms of fairness and transparency, but as this is the final test of demand for free schools to fulfil conditions in funding agreements (so there is still a chance that some schools won't open without a minimum number of bums on seats), and in view of the site issues for TH, it's inevitable that a complete picture is not yet available. Thanks also to BayJay for her info on TH sharing data with the LA.

whatever plan was put in place was politically motivated rather than driven by demand

You could say the government's free schools and academy process is politically motivated, but in terms of LAs needing to deliver on statutory obligations, they are doing that in difficult conditions. The system has big flaws that even Conservative politicians have highlighted, and many LibDems here are frustrated about.

I also cannot see any good reason why AET would not have wanted to work with LBRUT to add potential bulge places at RPA

Perhaps RPA didn't offer a bulge class this year because actual take-up last year was lower than offers. This year they have a waiting list instead, which may be a more accurate/earlier insight into take-up. The state sector's budget is being squeezed year on year and they can no longer afford to recruit more teachers than classes.

mum RPA over offered by 60 places last year and started in September fully subscribed. You would presume they have started from that position this year but they are reassuring parents that they expect the waiting list to move 40 to 80 places so maybe for some reason they didn't overoffer. I am sure it would help parents to know the extent to which they over offered so that they have some idea of the likely robustness of the assurances they are getting from LBRUT. Instead there is a general concern that LBRUT are up to their old trick of leaving parents languishing on waiting lists in the hope that they will find other options, something Barnes and Sheen parents are very familiar with at Primary level. You only need to look at the map to see that Barnes is now a black hole with little flexibility to be served other than by RPA unless LBRUT are hoping the problem can be solved by undersubscribed schools North of the river?

The extra classes were negotiated with the Academy trusts as part of the strategy we have already seen. It was never raised as a risk that they could not work with the trusts to deliver that but rather where they did. The only reason I can see to have put all the extra classes on the Middlesex side, if that is what they have done, would be to avoid the prophecy coming true of Middlesex pupils having to travel to RPA as a result of giving the Clifden site away. Perhaps they hoped the Surrey parents would be less Bolshie / more used to going private, and the Conservatives certainly don't want to upset Twickenham voters just at the moment. We are being positively pestered by Conservative "researchers" ascertaining if knowing Twickenham is one of the 23 seats they need to get an overall majority will sway us to vote for "David Cameron"

If none of this is the case then surely the best thing would be to release the information and stop the speculation?

It's an inescapable fact that there are more pupils transferring from state to private on the Surrey side than the Middlesex side. You can see that from London Schools Atlas - while it's a couple of years out of date, you had only 30% of (all) pupils in Barnes attending a state funded secondary in 2012-213. Similarly only 32% in South Richmond. But 76% in Fulwell (so TH is likely to get high interest committed to comprehensive education) and 90% in Heathfield.

I'm amazed at the number of people I know who have the luxury of rejecting Tiffin or Waldegrave. But then, it's one of the richest boroughs in London and the country and particularly in certain wards.

But the LA is not allowed to prioritise state school pupils over prep school ones in allocating community places, and do not know who is aiming for private. All they know is the level of rejections for each area/school. I am very sure the picture in Barnes is changing from initial offers.

mum I would have thought it was blatantly obvious from the increase in applications for RPA that part of the reason for those figures is because up until now those parents in Barnes, Sheen etc. did not have the option of a good local inclusive comprehensive school (s) whereas up until recently Fullwell parents did. I do not think you can extrapolate a commitment, or lack of it, to comprehensive education from those past trends. In fact many of the pupils now excluded from the RPA catchment are from Lowther School which is by far the most mixed primary socially in Barnes, 24.9% fsm, 57% bme. www.lowther.richmond.sch.uk/Newsletters/Your%20School%20%20the%20data%20November%202014.pdf I know there are some very affluent areas in Barnes and Sheen but it is far from homogenous. Add to that that Sheen Mount is bang in the middle of one of the most affluent areas, those parents have never shown a lack of committment to state education at primary level and, by all accounts form a fairly significant cohort of the parents being attracted away from private secondary education by the improvement at RPA. If RPA had always been the equivalent of Orleans / Waldegrave then the figures you quote would I am sure follow a similar pattern to their catchment, and are now adjusting in that direction.

Heathclif, it's also 90% going to state schools from Whitton ward, too. Are you saying Whitton and Heathfield have lots more choice and therefore satisfied parents in comparison to Barnes?

Also remember that Lowther is close to two other boroughs and until recently was only 1FE. Many of its pupils are from other boroughs that will need to fulfil their own statutory duty of providing places. This LA can only offer places not taken up in this borough but there's no stopping pupils in that area signing up for out of borough schools' waiting lists in addition to Richnond. Other possible schools are Chiswick School, West London Free, Hammersmith Academy, Fulham Cross, Fulham College, Ark Putney. And indeed, the most selective private schools in the area - St Paul's, Godolphin and Latimer, etc. How do you know for certain that those at Lowther initially offered Twickenham Academy have not yet been offered an alternative?

mum all they have been offered by LBRUT apart from TA is the prospect of a waiting list place at RPA. Yes there are schools north of the river, as I pointed out one of the things upsetting parents is they think LBRUT have failed to make provision / are not planning future provision for them (and this problem will be ongoing) is because they hope they will take places in those schools out of borough that are undersubscribed because they are unpopular. They do not want Lowther to be split down the middle with a few lucky ones going together to the neighbourhood school RPA that has been building a relationship with them over some time (and of course LBRUT want it to be an even closer relationship as an academy trust though the primary schools do not want that) and the rest scattered to whatever schools North of the river are unpopular enough to have spaces. It is obvious from the cut off distance this is not an issue affecting only out of borough pupils, Lowther is increasingly popular with local parents, another success story down to inspiring leadership. It is a matter the governors as well as parents are persuing actively with both AET and LBRUT. Why do you think Lowther parents should not have expected / expect LBRUT to plan provision for it's in borough pupils?

All secondaries within Richmond are their own admissions authorities. The LA cannot open new schools of its own. All it is doing is coordinating places of schools within its boundaries. The schools manage their own waiting lists. RPA has many pupils from Wandsworth. The LA cannot stop that. But until very recently there were surplus places there and surrounding out of borough schools. Central government would not approve a business case of funding new schools for basic need in that area unless they are free schools with restrictive admissions.

The LA has discharged its duty of offering places as far as is within its power. However, the admissions staff are very helpful in my experience and may be able to offer suggestions. I'd suggest RPA places would have come up after a month when private school offers were taken up. Perhaps those Lowther pupils can confirm that? More places may come up in due course.

I've checked the admissions brochures: last year there would have been an excellent chance of getting into Fulham Cross Girls, Fulham College Boys and Ark Putney: Fulham Cross had an initial cut-off within which Lowther is located, and all places were offered to those with a preference for the other two schools. Lowther also looks like it is just within the priority area for Fulham Boys Free School.

It is a matter the governors as well as parents are persuing actively with both AET and LBRUT

Lowther is not included in the MAT discussions, only East Sheen and Barnes.

mum they are persuing the matter of there being enough accessible in borough places for their pupils, hopefully at RPA. However I understand the issue of the academies trust has been raised with them.

Why in-borough where pupils might well live closer to other schools? The Greenwich ruling is well established.

Ofsted reports of those alternative schools in case you think they are unpopular because they are not good enough:

Fulham Cross Girls: Outstanding
Fulham College Boys: Good
Ark Putney: Good

mum I have already explained why a lot of Parents who expected that their children would go with their classmates to the school they were familiar with as a result of all the activities they had done together as school communities are very upset and angry to find themselves excluded and offered instead a school at the other end of the borough that they are not prepared for an 11year old to travel to. I do not know the ins and outs of which other schools have places but they apparently are equally upset that they suspect LBRUT are expecting them to go quietly and spread out between whichever schools across the river have places, I have no idea if they are the ones you mention, I would have thought it highly unlikely that they would not have waiting lists just like RPA.

I am a frankly confused as to why you feel so strongly that Surrey parents, especially Barnes parents have any less right to expect adequate provision than Middlesex ones, and should meekly accept that their fate is to have to seek creative out of borough solutions, move or go private? It was just the prospect of that situation emerging for Middlesex parents who had been used to having provision that underpinned a lot of the controversy over the Clifden site. TA is also near a borough boundary but that end of the borough is clearly over provided for if they are touting the places across the other end of the borough. Yet it appears there is at least the equivalent of an extra form of entry between the additional places in two of the most popular nearby schools.

Releasing this information would not be unfair to parents, certainly it wasn't regarded as unfair last year, it would help them understand a situation that is causing great uncertainty and distress, and could be, as Lottie highlighted, available to all on their website . Not releasing the information is just going to make parents think they have something to hide.