Richmond Borough Schools Chat 7

[muminlondon2]

Lots and lots of discussions on local schools and education issues preceded this thread, including Richmond Borough Schools Chat 6.

Anyone who wants to carry on that discussion, and offer information and opinions (without being moderated by any particular individual or interest group, bearing in mind all the usual mumsnet guidelines about respect and not getting personal, etc.) - feel free.

Interesting story in Schoolsweek: The criteria for opening new school sixth forms is under review due to a risk of "over-supply", it has been announced.

Could that affect St Richard Reynolds and Turing House? We certainly seem to have an oversupply of sixth form places in the borough now with lots of small sixth forms.

Meanwhile the Schoolsweek editor Laura McInerney writes a very interesting article on the need for school place planning to accompany any effort to take in refugees:

We'll have to find refugees as big a space in our schools as our hearts

I can't see the free school programme and the illusion of parental choice being sustainable faced with such pressures. LAs will have to be directly involved in planning school places.

Why do you think that sixth form thing would affect schools already open and approved to have sixth forms? I read it as being about schools that are only up to age 16 at present but want to add a sixth form. Only one round here it could affect would be REEC but they are meant to feed into the college aren't they?

Those schools in Richmond that are not yet outstanding - what is their excuse?

I suspect they would all be outstanding if they didn't have 30 children in the class, had only two year groups in the building, had well below average disadvantaged children and below average SEN and children for whom English is not their first language, and if the inspectors turn up on a day when the kids are having a great time doing art or gardening and are off site.

As for the demographic: the fact that founders' children get preferred status for admission is going to skew Thomson's demographic a bit, particularly at this stage in its development.

The Surrey Comet has Inside Kingston's first free schools:

. . Kingston Academy . . has 22 members of staff including nine full and five part time teachers teaching 134 pupils of its full 180 pupil capacity. The majority of students are very local with 36 per cent living in the KT2 5 postcode. By Easter Mrs Cavanagh hopes the children will be in the permanent building, with a view to fully open the school by 2017 . .

The Independent reports that universal free meals for infants may get scrapped.

RTT Online has Refugees, lidos and free schools: All the key talking points from Tuesday's Richmond Council meeting (Sep 15): Cllr Paul Hodgins, cabinet member for education, was asked why other sites were rejected before Turing House School announced it would be permanently based in Whitton . .
……….
The article includes a photo, the first I’ve seen, of the Whitton site, currently home to horses it appears.

In the RTT printed paper on 18 Sept a letter from A Shackleton highlighted the flawed consultation process allowed by Free Schools. It is entirely up to the school proposers who they consult and how they carry out the consultation. In the case of Deer Park School, this process was very unsatisfactory.A lot of decisions seem to be made long before any planning application. Surely this process should be far more open and not so secretive? It must be happening all over the country to local residents and
has been highlighted in various newspaper articles.

There's a letter in today's RTT from Councillor Frost regarding Richmond Park Academy, Hampton Academy and Twickenham Academy.

Apparently Cllr Hodgins attacked the schools (or perhaps criticised their performance). I haven't seen the webcast of this meeting yet but may have a look. She says:

'If these schools have not been able to fulfil their potential during this period it may be considered to be a reflection on his failure as the responsible cabinet member.'

But these schools have been operated by chains which have performed badly elsewhere and are not under local authority control any more so aren't the responsibility of the council. And the LibDems approved those sponsors in the first place. If Cllr Hodgins has admitted they are not performing as well as they should be doing, that's an honest statement, seeing as it's true (even though his party's national policy is to forcibly academise more schools). Perhaps it's that sort of LibDem attitude that prompted Cllr Churchill in Teddington to defect to Labour?

The chains are irrelevant in the day-to-day running - that is down to the HT and SLT.

Then what's the justification for schools being forced to academise against their will?

I saw that letter and bristled that it was drawing attention to the comments just when everyone is making their secondary choices again. It won't do the schools any good for the lib dems to broadcast the comments whether they're justified or not.
It does sound like a sudden change in direction by the Tories though. Maybe some action is in the pipeline?

People aren't making choices, they are stating preferences - there is a difference.
Decide if your child is a low, middle, or high attainer.
Look at the local schools (on the DfE website - easy comparison tool) and see where those different categories of attainer make 'expected progess.
The state a preference.

But these are comprehensive schools. They're meant to cater for the whole range of abilities. They are the only option for many in the local area.

If we can't reverse or abandon the academy programme then it should be a whole lot easier to cancel contracts, switch sponsors or allow them to be taken back under LA control where there is capacity. It should be written into the latest Academies Bill. From everything I have seen, local Conservatives are pragmatists and probably agree. I doubt they can do very much until the law changes.

Governance is important but so is effective improvement with local partners as well as community support. The academy chain model can hinder collaboration. Even the CEO of AET has said this!

Referring back to my earlier post about LST director changes, my hunch is that there will be positive change at the academies soon.

On another note, this is from Tania Mathias' latest newsletter:
""I have enjoyed visiting local schools in recent weeks and seeing the great education that Twickenham has on offer. I know that residents are concerned about the lack of school places – an issue I raised in Parliament with the Schools Minister – and I hope we can get a new school in place soon, but I am opposed to siting Turing House in Whitton"

What new school?

Perhaps she means a new primary school in East Twickenham? Although second half of sentence seems to imply secondary.

I don't think it's fair to criticise the opposition spokesperson for defending the 3 sponsored academy schools when the Cabinet member for education has suddenly turned round and started criticising them having claimed they were more or less fine for years. It seems that on the whole they are improving and when you look at the attainment figures for the different attainers which Mrs Salvo refers to the whole picture of 5 good schools, 3 bad schools that has been the common understanding for years seems a lot less clear.

I don't think Cllr. Churchill's decision has much to do with the local scene:
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jennifer-churchill/jeremy-corbyn_b_8187890.html

From Members’ Questions - Council – 15 September 2015: Item 5

Cllr Healy has given notice to ask the Strategic Cabinet Member
for Children’s Services and Schools: “Does the Cabinet Member support a school in Whitton intended primarily for students from Fulwell and Teddington?”

Cllr Martin . . : “Can the Cabinet Member comment on the Secondary results this year?”

Cllr Nicholson . . : “Would the Cabinet Member advise when the Education Funding Agency will hold a public consultation in Richmond borough to identify sites locally available for consideration for new schools, following the EFA consultation in Reading, which identified a number of safe and suitable sites?”

Cllr Churchill . . : “How many three/four year olds whose parents applied for a nursery place were unsuccessful in gaining a place at any of the borough's state maintained nurseries starting this September?”

When Ms Churchill reads John McDonnell: Labour will match Osborne and live within our means - Exclusive: shadow chancellor says party will vote in favour of Tories’ fiscal charter but will take radically different approach on cutting deficit (Guardian Online) she may wonder whether she has jumped into the right ship.

She might well have found herself more at home with the Greens: John McDonnell has 'fallen into Osborne's trap' says Caroline Lucas - Green party leader says shadow chancellor’s decision to back proposed fiscal charter reinforces Tories’ austerity narrative.

Her defection will have no effect locally but is an interesting sign of the times to old party hacks like me.

Wasn't there something in the school place strategy about needing yet another secondary afterTuring and REEC? I remember thinking they must mean on the Richmond side. If the council suddenly come up with a site on Turing's patch that they've had in their pocket all along they'll look pretty bad.

I suspect you were right in thinking it was on the Richmond side jellytoto. So far Kingston Academy hasn't led Kingston pupils to switch from Grey Court and free spaces for Richmond pupils, but instead have switched from other undersubscribed Kingston schools threatening their viability and leaving more than 200 places empty. The equivalent of a whole school, in fact.

Just listened to the webcast. A couple of digs from Cllrs Hodgins and Samuels about the Whitton/Hampton schools both being given to the same underperforming sponsor, and not all of them daring to publish their exam results (which would be Twickenham Academy). And a dig from Cllr Frost about sixth forms and 'one leading school' not doing so well on Science AS level. I'd like to know which one she means - not all of them are selective on entry. And I'd like to know how to benchmark that against College students.

This is guesswork, but the science dept at Orleans park has lagged the rest of the school in recent years if the Ofsted reporta are anything to go by.
Their overall outstanding judgement is very old so they must be due for another report soon.
Msybe some schools lost boys to Wsldegrave's sixth form.

It looks like Twick Academy have published their GCSE results now on the website. 41.3% five a*-c with english and maths.

Do you know how that compares to their value added?

Sheila

The DfE website give you and easy comparison tool
here
You can compare value added and pupil progress where schools have submitted their data.
Provides a useful starting point for questions at open days.

Worth asking why some school don't submit the current year info until the very last date they are forced to - eg after the applications for places deadline - if they are using the excuse about re-marks - would apply to all schools equally.

There are also detailed financial information, so you can see how many TAs etc they employ compared to other schools, although some schools do not post this.

So it must be RPA which is the only school which hasn't published its GCSE results. MrsSalvo may have a point about their lack of transparency - unless the results are somewhere?

Cllr Frost gave some statistic about a school where 40% failed a science AS level. That's not Orleans Park as their results are shown here. It is true that they didn't do as well on social sciences - she may have been talking about Psychology? But still, two points: (a) it is a new subject for most pupils as well as teachers, (b) we have no idea what the starting point was for those students, but they were the more popular subjects so the ability range could have been wider.

Either way, Cllr Frost can hardly complain about Cllr Hodgins denigrating the local schools when she is denigrating one of the local schools.