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.

It's twice as far away from Heathfield as Hampton Hill is from Hampton Academy. Why can't Heathfield pupils take the TH places and Hampton Hill pupils take the HA places? It may soon drop the Kunskappskolan model and be the small sized school you prefer.

Many already do muminlondon but eventually it will be full, especially if it improves. But I wasn't talking about Heathfield as those families will go to Heathlands, I'm talking about Whitton which is a short hop from Richmond College.

Hampton Hill pupils will always get a place at Hampton Academy. They are less than a mile away.

Jellytoto, you are right. The Richmond College school could also be quite accessible to Whitton residents.

And the Richmond College school could also serve Hampton Hill. After all, it should not be assumed that it will serve only it´s immediate area. For example, having the 2015 centre of admissions for Turing House in Fulwell still enabled students from all over the borough to gain admission.

"Hampton Hill pupils will always get a place at Hampton Academy"
but Whitton pupils will always get a place at Twickenham Academy also. Both are on the same journey so it makes most sense for the Turing impact to be spread between them.

Mum - I don't give the LA credit for coming up with the MAT plan, there is no way the DfE was going to let TA and HA continue as they were with those ofsteds and getting successful schools to help out struggling ones is a central policy. I'd put my money on the DfE pulling (yanking) the LAs strings.
The LA could have done a hell of a lot more to ensure TH site was not in Whitton, that would (still could?) show support for TA. I agree with Jelly and I do think locating the main admissions point as far away from the other schools is the responsible thing to do to lessen it's impact. The conspiracy theorist in me says that the LA is quite happy to have a couple of not-so-good schools on it's patch as it means more go private.

WhittonMum - you make a good point about the distribution of TH places this year. Going forward there won't be perfect circles around the admission points, admissions will stretch across the borough serving children who have no choice of a good school.

Just to chip in on the point muminlondon2 made about whether parents of Waldegrave and Teddington pupils were happy about their headteachers being diverted to improve TA and HA. I gather there was a full and frank discussion of this at a meeting at Teddington a few weeks ago. Many parents expressed concern that Teddington still had a number of its own issues to sort out and that most of the senior leadership team was very new to the school, including the Head, Mr Wilkinson, who only started in 2014, the deputy Ms Poole and the head of 6th form who are brand new. He said that he was needed because Mrs Nunn of Waldegrave has only worked in girls schools. They both basically felt that they didn't have much choice, although the timing from his point of view was far from ideal. He was concerned that if TA and HA were not grouped with or helped by Waldegrave and Teddington something worse and unfavourable to education locally would happen. Not sure what that would be. He lives in Whitton.

Depending how tight things will be in a couple of years from now, we might be in the TH catchment area (judging by the 2016 admission point) and I've been following the TH saga with great interest... BUT lost most interest when the permanent site was decided. For us that would be something like a 4-5km school journey - no thanks. Luckily we're also in the Teddington school 'catchment' area so we have at least one other option. Hopefully the school will remain strong or improve, I've been hearing all kinds of rumours and neg opinions lately about Teddington School, some even here on this forum.

Bluestars if you agree that admissions will stretch across the borough serving children who have no choice of a good school then why would more be going private?

I don´t know any Whitton/Heathfield parents who would choose a local school that requires improvement over a school located just down the road that was good/outstanding. We would be doing our children a disservice if we didn´t make that decision for them.

There is going to be a significant impact on the academies, unless as you say the admissions policy ´lessens the impact´. If by lessen the impact you mean that the TH admission policy only allows a small number of Whitton/Heathfield families then the rest are left with only TA. Twickenham, parts of South/East Whitton and parts of Fulwell will have the additional choice of the Richmond College School.

Therefore, children living in Heathfield and parts of North/West Whitton will be the ones lessening the impact. In terms of lessening the impact on HA, that will probably be North Hampton children I´d imagine as they are the furthest from both the Teddington/Fulwell admissions point and the school site.

The map on p15 of this document shows the particular areas of the borough and it is easy to understand why some of those parents living in those areas and others would feel that the TH admissions policy is excluding them and therefore is discriminatory and why others may sympathise with them. www.richmond.gov.uk/child_poverty_strategy_2014-17.pdf

The areas of Hounslow Borough to the North and West of Heathfield TH School site have areas with even higher levels of child poverty than within Richmond borough. Those parents really don´t have the option of going private.

These are the parents who would need a local school within walking distance because they simply cannot afford to pay for public transport for their children to travel to school every day and may not even own a car themselves.

I don´t think that LBRUT is happy to have not-so-good secondaries on it´s patch at all. Imagine if Twickenham Academy were given an outstanding rating by Ofsted then everyone would be desperate to get their DC in and would be attracting local families from West Twickenham and Fulwell in addition to Whitton and Heathfield.

Turing House have published their autumn newsletter: they seem to have got off to a good start.

WhittonMum – I meant that it doesn’t hurt the LA to have a high proportion of private-going families in the borough. They have based their school place planning strategy on many going private for years. But, as I said, that’s just my conspiracy theory, take it with a pinch of salt if you like.

TH was not set up to try and solve all of the boroughs school place issues, it was set-up specifically to help the situation in North Teddington/Fulwell/West Twickenham. These parents have a much narrower choice of school than Whitton parents.

By “lessening the impact” I meant that locating the admissions point furthest away from the other schools it tries to even the spread of the impact. Hopefully HA and TA will improve, move away from their current educational model, and then parents will have a real choice.

Worried about LProsser’s comments about the lack of choice for Teddington/Waldegrave and what this “something worse and unfavourable to education locally” might be ...

I thought TH was established to ´serve the Middlesex side of Richmond Borough´. I know that the expressions of interest were concentrated in other areas but does the Middlesex side of the Borough not include Hampton, Hampton Hill, Whitton and Heathfield?

Yes, hopefully for everyone TA and HA will improve and move away from their current educational model but the conditions may be difficult for them to do that.

From the TH website: "catering for the Middlesex side of the borough, and in particular the central part of that area (Fulwell, Hampton Hill, North Teddington and West Twickenham)."

It doesn't say Hampton itself though. Demand is concentrated around there on this map.. Big hole in Hampton Academy's catchment - harder conditions for its recovery, as whittonmum said. In fact, HA likely to be harder hit than TA with new admissions point. Not as many from West Twickenham but would be fewer now the admissions point has moved.

Turing House free school application here.

'Many children in the South-West Twickenham, Fulwell and North Teddington areas have no obvious mainstream secondary provision'. [page 18]

'The Local Authority has indicated to us that Fulwell and North Teddington are likely locations of future school place shortages in some of its projections' [page 33]

So no mention of Hampton or Hampton Hill. Unless it's considered South West Twickenham? Also:

'Some people feel that the Kunskappskolan methodology ... is an unconventional model ... It is our view that the option of a mainstream education model should also be provided in this area'

But that business case would no longer if the new MAT goes ahead and HA/TA become mainstream.

The best way to serve the mddx side of the borough is by having the admissions point in the middle where there are no other schools rather than at one edge where there are lots. That's obvious to me and the only thing that would make me change my mind short of there being a site made available in Fulwell would be if Waldegravw announced it was going co-ed. I don't see how anyone can look at that big hole in the middle of the consultation map and disagree.

Whittonmum earlier you said something about public transport costs which was a red herring because kids go free on the buses. There are some great schools on Hounslow which are very accessible from Whitton and Heathfield so while I can understand you might want something even closer you're not as deprived of choice like we are over here.

Yes, I read this recently:

Richmond’s primary schools top the league tables in England and are very attractive to parents. There is a large drop-off to the private sector but this fluctuates. The recession reduced the drop-off at a time when birth rates were growing and new housing was being built.

So therefore I agree that this does contribute to the lack of school places.

I would say that West Twickenham parents would be as likely to choose Richmond College School as TH. You probably already know but in addition to the cycle lanes along the A316 there´s also a very easy cycle route along the River Crane that connects Heathfield, West Twickenham, Richmond College and plans to connect all the way up to Brewery Wharf. It also continues to St. Margaret´s which makes the Richmond College site very accessible by students who cycle/walk. But doesn´t necessarily help to place Heathfield within it´s catchment unfortunately as it is based on distance rather than accessibility.

www.richmond.gov.uk/lower_crane_valley_leaflet_a4_download_complete.pdf

I imagine that this would be of interest to those of you who are concerned about congestion, pollution and air quality levels close to busy roads and junctions.

Has anyone heard of any examples of where the MAT model has worked successfully previously?

Jellytoto yes of course you are right they would go free on the buses, if there is a route that is suitable. There isn´t currently a TfL bus route from North Hampton to Whitton that I´m aware of.

It would only apply to school coach costs and private vehicular transport. Of course, TfL pay for the cost of the transport, nothing is actually ´free´.

On admission points - you could have two or three extra 'nodes' to spread distribution out, in addition to the school site, and allocate a equal proportion from each. Then there's no suspicion of favouring any area more than the location in which the school is sited. I see the maps for Teddington and Orleans Park stretch to either side of St Mary's but Strawberry Hill station is a black hole for both. That could be one point, and Fulwell station another. More logical than a postcode or OS reference.

Also, siblings should come out of the same fixed proportion, as for Waldegrave. That keeps patterns more predictable and the pronounced Hampton trend would not keep getting repeated preventing recovery of HA.

whittonmum the trend seems to be for 'capacity building' of new smaller chains as the big large chains have expanded too fast. I think the threat to educational landscape comes from both the risk of yet another unknown outside sponsor being imposed, and the vulnerability of standalone academies after the latest Academies Bill gets passed, which will have arbitrary criteria for takeover of 'coasting' schools.

I was very surprised to see how many from Hampton were going to Turing House when I first saw the admissions map. Not exactly what had been expected but I suppose the catchment area is always wider in the first year until the first lot of parents give the school a good report. This seemed to happen with Sir RR.

bluestars sorry to alarm you. I got the impression (and I wasn't at the meeting of course) that the two Heads were concerned that if they didn't help out TA and HA another outside sponsor might be found who wouldn't be helpful and cooperative with existing local schools or there would be some other unsatisfactory solution given that the Swedish want out by Easter. Teddington is undoubtedly having a slightly difficult patch at the moment with losing its head to ill health, having to recruit a new one, having to become an academy, open a 6th form, GCSEs changing, a lot of longstanding staff retiring partly because of educational changes, difficulty recruiting teachers because of horrendous cost of living locally and so on, but I think things are difficult for a lot of local schools for the same sort of reasons. It's still functioning!

I was talking to a lecturer in education from Sheffield yesterday and he was saying that statistics show that the non-degree approach to training teachers eg. Teach First has not been a success with 50% drop out rates but Government still seems determined that teachers shouldn't learn how to teach at Universities.

I know a lot of those Hampton dots and they got their offers quite late after Waldegrave and Orleans offered all those extra places, so there was a domino effect. Also I know some who moved to places like Shepperton because they didn't know for sure that Turing would open. So with more certainty next year the catchment will get smaller, but then from 2018 there will also be more places. It's only 100 at the moment.

Another warning here about recruitment crisis. London in particular is expensive. Think also what a shock EU referendum result would do in this borough - quite a lot of well educated Europeans working here as teachers.

Advantages to all four schools in a new MAT would be succession planning, absence cover and shared professional development. So if one head went on maternity or sick leave there'd be no panic. Look how long it took to recruit the head at Teddington, appointments elsewhere when a deputy has been promoted. And also the London Challenge was as much of a learning curve for mentoring school leaders as to those mentored. I think the schools are considering the benefits of merger as opposed to hostile takeover.

cannot afford to pay for public transport for their children to travel to school every day
children get free bus travel in london

MuminLondon2 you make a good point when you highlight this: *The Local Authority has indicated to us that Fulwell and North Teddington are likely locations of future school place shortages in some of its projections [page 33]

So no mention of Hampton or Hampton Hill. Unless it's considered South West Twickenham?*

From that map I counted 5 students from Fulwell, another 5 from Teddington (but not North Teddington?), and around 40 from Hampton Hill and Hampton this year.

LProsser I am very surprised to see how many are going from Hampton too.

MuminLondon2 Looks like HA is already harder hit than TA without the new admissions point