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!

Shame that Bayjay has decided to stop posting just when at the moment when TH is in the spotlight here

I've read the article and there is something that puzzles me - why would a parent of a child with learning difficulties (1-1 provision needed)/special needs apply for a place in a newly approved school that's miles away. A school that was just approved, and is in the process of hiring new staff and will function in temporary accommodation for the next couple of years? Surely this means that the school isn't currently the best placed to provide for someone with special needs?

I don't have any experience with this but as a mother, unless the school was across the street (and it looks like it isn't - the family lives in Barnes) - TH would have been the last school to apply to. I think the headteachers' arguments are sensible and they admit they can't provide for those special needs this year. The situation might be different in a couple of years from now, once they are more established, hire more staff, and perhaps have more/adequate space.

Good luck to the mother, looks like a tough situation to be in.

MrsSalvo –I thought you wanted to move the debate on from TH :)

It’s an unfair article in my opinion. He has a place at Clarendon which means he must have been turned down by all the mainstream schools he applied to and referred by the Local Authority’s Special Needs panel. The LA must have agreed with TH and thought that Clarendon was the best fit, it’s an LA decision. Why focus on TH’s response and not the other schools? It is badly worded but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the quotes have been taken out of context. Poor reporting.

LProsser – I agree with you that the link system wasn’t working. I was just passing on my anecdotal experience :)

Here's direct link:

Today's print RTT has "Its discrimination" Boy with learning difficulties "turned away" from free school (p 1):

The school is Turing House; the boy has been accepted by Clarendon special school. His mother is upset but won't appeal.

I did notice comments on the Whitton Against Turing House petition site from a mother in Teddington worried about the location in Whitton because she was worried her son, who had special needs (ADHD, I think) would be disturbed by a change of location and a long bus ride when she had assumed it would be a Teddington location. For all those who have been turned down, there are others who might be put off. Not 'inclusive' to leave parents in the dark about the site.

And there's a pattern for RET schools, it seem.

Muminlondon - Turing House is in the dark about the site too!!!

Muminlondon - If TH ends up with an Ofsted report as good as Becket Keys I'd be thrilled, I hope this is a pattern for RET schools....

From the Becket Keys Outstanding Ofsted report:
"The proportions of disabled students and those that have special educational needs, mostly moderate learning difficulties, supported by school action, school action plus or by a statement of special educational needs are higher than average."

"Disabled students and those who have special educational needs make rapid progress because they are identified early on arrival. They are known well and are nurtured in small groups to help them gain confidence and competence in reading, writing and mathematics. Additional help from teachers working alongside other teachers in lessons, and personalised, one- to-one support, enable the students to secure basic literacy and numeracy skills. Regularly reading aloud to teachers and responding to written feedback from teachers about their spelling and use of grammar help students to improve their confidence and understanding."

bluestars TH have known about the Whitton site since December when they changed their admissions policy. They probably already know the outcome of the Teddington site. BayJay - while this has been a fascinating thread - has known much more than she let on but couldn't say, which is why the references to the website or TH email became so repetitive.

Muminlondon - I think you are being really unfair. TH have been bound by EFA rules and regulations and have not been able to talk about site, they have no choice. This has been explained many times at the Open Evenings. Do you know if IC have made a decision about UP? If your theory that TH knows the outcome then surely the other bidders do too. Why are they all so quiet?

Perhaps TH has been told that the Imperial College sports ground was too expensive and had already received high bids so EfA not bidding, or by Richmond Council that planning consent for a large school building would be very unlikely to be granted? Agree there has been no announcement about outcome of the bidding process though and had not been expecting one quite yet.

Perhaps the mother of the autistic son applied to TH because it would be a much smaller school initially so easier for him to cope with than an established large secondary.

I see no evidence that TH isn’t just waiting for IC to make their decision just like everyone else. I wish they would hurry up ...

Imperial College have their own political problems in relation to the rationalisation of their sports facilities and the impact on other users at all their sites across London. They face a juggling act themselves in coming to the best solution for the university, hence their extreme sensitivity when the UP negotiations first leaked out. There could well be delays and prevarication at their end.

Why are they all so quiet?

We've had election purdah for six weeks. Not even the Ofsted reports of free schools have been published, let alone site decisions. Remember BayJay's heads-up on Thomson House? No report yet. But Marshgate was inspected around the same time and its Outstanding report has been out for a while.

But IC are not constrained by purdah. If they had made their decision then the other local bidders like Space to Play would have announced it.

There could be a due diligence period. Or maybe the rumours and reports about mid-April auction gave false hope that it will be resolved quickly. The longer it drags on, the less certainty for parents. TH has established a firm link with North Teddington/Fulwell with its temporary site and admissions point, recruiting from primaries in that area, so it's in their interest to maintain that association in order to retain pupils it has made offers to in order to be allowed to open.

But if the IC site isn't viable, it doesn't make the Whitton site any more appropriate. While the local MP and council have unanimously opposed its admissions policy if sited in Whitton, they would also have to address not only planning process opposition, but also the problem of it undermining Twickenham Academy. That would include its SEN provision: TH couldn't assume another local mainstream school would have the capacity to take in such pupils.

I've created a new thread in case anyone is interested in carrying on the discussion or just post interesting news links. Might be useful, might not!

Richmond Borough Schools Chat 7

Good idea Muminlondon - I'll fill this one up.

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Over here local.mumsnet.com/Talk/local_richmond_upon_thames/2374655-Richmond-Borough-Schools-Chat-7