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!

Interestingly, Hampton School does a lot of that sort of thing: www.hamptonschool.org.uk/The-School/Pastoral/Mindfulness.aspx

Some relaxation practices are more controversial than others - particularly controversial are the ones that are part of a wider philosophical movement, like those associated with the Maharishi School.

The issue of cultivating well being and resilience in pupils at private schools is being widely addressed. The new Head at LEH is also well known for a focus on it. www.lehs.org.uk/resilient-teenagers/545783.html It can only be a good thing when these pupils face such relentless pressure to consistently achieve academically, whether in state or private schools.

At Newland House some kids do yoga & meditation, from what I know - not sure if you have to pay extra for it.

Brain Gym was all the rage a few years ago. That's been debunked mercilessly by Ben Goldacre among others.

Yeah, brain gym is controversial because it a) uses a lot of pseudo-scientific rhetoric and b) schools have to pay a lot of money for it.

anyone know where exactly twickenham primary academy is going to be?

Heathgate House off Twickenham Green, back entrance next to Jack the Stripper. That's the GEMS school. Not that there's been any new planning permission that I have heard of.

They don't need planning permission before they open: www.gov.uk/government/news/planning-changes-to-help-open-free-schools-gates-faster

Except that just allows schools to set up temporarily, not a long-term future. The last report on the Khalsa Academy puts that Sikh school into a position of uncertainty.

Yes, it gives them a year.

And its worth adding that, as I said before, the risk management exercises have tightened since the Khalsa Academy opened. No doubt it will feature strongly in a Lessons Learned document somewhere in the DfE, along with other schools that have hit the headlines over the lifetime of the policy.

Vince Cable has put a comment on his website about the unsuitability of siting Turing House in Whitton rather than Teddington. I was critical of Stephen Knight for using it against the council politically when the EFA are doing the procurement, but the slightly cryptic remarks of Paul Hodgins in the RTT suggest they have aware of this site possibility for a while (whether or not 'favoured it').

From VC’s website: House School - Need for new secondary school in Teddington. The item is undated.

We were looking back through thei school's news updates last night. They said in October they were waiting for council recommendations, then in December the EFA were pursuing a site identified by the council, so maybe that was the Whitton as don't think upr was on the market then. But in Feb they said there were 2 sites being looked at, and that was around the time the upr site was first being talked about as being put up for sale.
Hoping they get Upr, as we have offer for Sept, but will be happy with whitton too. Know some parents in whitton who are hoping it might be there so not everyone there supporting the petition.

Chris - The article you mentioned is coming up as article not found - link broken or has it gone? TIA

Try this

www.vincecable.org.uk/need_for_new_secondary_school_in_teddington

A Whitton resident here. Based on the assumption the Teddington site gets rejected, I think the opposition to Whitton would be alleviated if the selection criteria were to be split 50/50 between local to the school and the admissions point.

I know a lot of Whitton parents would welcome the school if their children had a chance of attending it.

Additionally, staggering the time of the school day so that it doesn't coincide with Twickenham Academy may also help the traffic (e.g. 8am to 2pm).

RTT Online has: Deer Park School offers first places to September starters:

. . Deer Park School, which will open on a temporary site for the next academic year, hopes to eventually move into London House in Lower Mortlake Road . . Alison Colenso, who takes up the post of headteacher at Deer Park School in May, said: "We have been greatly encouraged that so many families share our vision for a first-class school for the local community. The funding agreement for Deer Park School has now been signed by the secretary of state for education and we have been overwhelmed by the responses we received to our recruitment campaign for teaching staff." . .

So if that meant 75 from Whitton/Hounslow at Turing House instead of 30, what would be the impact on Twickenham Academy?

The census last year had 137 pupils in year 7 at TA, with an undersubscribed sixth form. Hampton Academy was about 30 pupils below PAN as well. Turing House is bound to have a further impact, and when the REEC school opens it is only 30 minutes' walk away from Whitton/West Twickenham so it might draw away more pupils, too. And could you justify capital spending of £10 million or more, when fully subscribed schools like Orleans Park are having to cut teachers and increase class sizes because of a funding gap on SEN and freeze on per-pupil spending?

The 80/20 admissions split isn't acceptable either, I agree. But there are many people signing that petition simply opposed to building on MOL, off a residential road that narrows quite dramatically at the railway bridge that wouldn't be safe for extra cars and buses.

I´m not convinced that Turing House School is going to be as amazing as it claims it´s going to be. My husband is a teacher and we´ve had a look at their website.

We notice that Turing House is going to have 8 members of staff in addition to the Head. We are concerned regarding the lack of qualification of this small body of staff, particularly in subject specialisms and in secondary experience.

For example, the History teacher has no experience of teaching History and no degree in that subject. Also, the Geography teacher has no degree in Geography and no experience of teaching secondary Geography.

Also, the Spanish and Drama teacher has no formal teaching qualification to teach either subject. In addition, the Music teacher seems to have limited secondary teaching experience.

Perhaps more worryingly Turing House claims to offer a Specialist Science College education but the only Science teacher has a degree in Sports and Exercise Science and not Biology, Chemistry nor Physics. Also, the Technology teacher has not yet been recruited despite it being past the deadline for normal teaching applications.

I also notice from the Turing House website that the school is going to offer the English Baccalaureate but that none of the members of staff seem to have experience in this area which I believe is very different to traditional exams.

As a parent considering this as an option for my son who is in year 5, we are concerned about applying to a Free School where the experience of a small group of teachers is limited.

ZoeTedders, as a year 5 parent you won't have had the opportunity to meet the teachers yet, and by the time your child is ready to transfer to secondary the staff team will have increased in number, because they are proportionate to the number of children at the school. I suggest you reserve judgement until then.

Yes, BayJay2 but starting to think about these things now and it´s the team recruited as a whole by the Head that I´m concerned about not just a minority. Tbh will probably not apply based on what I´ve seen, wish there were more choices.

ZoeTedders - How can you possibly judge from a 2 para biog on the website? I was at a meet-the-teachers event for Turing House last night and I can say the staff are more than impressive! Don't forget that these are the founding members for the first year (they are only teaching Y7's - you don't need a geography degree to do that) and more staff will be recruited each year as the school grows. I was reassured by the recruitment process which was well explained and I have confidence in the staff I met last night to teach my DC well.

You are wrong about the science background - the head teacher has a science degree from Cambridge and was a physics teacher - they have all the bases for Y7 covered.

It was emphasised last night that the school also has the expertise of RET and Education London to draw on - a wide range of expert specialist teachers - to help support the school. I was mightily impressed and I'm very happy to send my DC there. Maybe if you have concerns you should contact the school directly, they answered all my questions last night very openly.

Is the Head going to be teaching all the year 7 science then? Didn´t realise he was going to be in the classrooms teaching all the year 7 groups. That is quite impressive actually.

The website has very detailed biographies of each of the teachers, not just two paragraph blogs. It even lists every single one of their hobbies!!

I´m glad that you have been reassured bluestars and I´m glad that all of these teachers who haven´t had experience of teaching these subjects will be getting support from outside of the school.

I´m still not convinced and you are absolutely right, I should address my concerns to the school directly. Nice to get feedback from other parents though, thank you.

Oh, and just to pick you up on a few specifics:
-you might be mixing up the EBACC with the IBACC (Surprised your husband made that mistake though )

• resignation deadline for teachers is end of May.
• it's very common for Y7 teachers not to have a specialism in the subject they're teaching. I suggest you check that carefully for your other secondary options if it's something that concerns you.