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.

LBRUT just tweeted that Deer Park School will share the Lidl site in East Twickenham

That is excellent news!

Makes so much more sense than London House. From press release:

'The news comes as a result of lengthy negotiations between the Education Funding Agency (EFA) and Ryde House’s owners, Lidl, and a series of direct interventions by Richmond Council at Lidl’s most senior level. ...

'Deer Park School has offered to meet with prospective parents on Tuesday 1 March at 5pm at Deer Park School, to hear more information about the planned move and also understand how to amend their preferences after being offered a place on National Offer Day on 18 April 2016.'

Great news. London House was never going to be accepted by Richmond parents as a suitable site for a school. It's a pity that local people were not consulted before that site was purchased. It would have saved a lot of time and taxpayers money

That is great news for parents auntieC75.

muminlondon2 This demand data released 27/11/2015 shows the same general comparative trends as the impact assessment data. Also includes an explanation.

I think I see WhittonMum1 - the explanation document estimates that overall Richmond will need 1,337 extra secondary places from 2015-2019. RTS and Turing House might provide 1,050 of them depending on RTS opening on time and Turing House moving to the permanent location after three years. But the detailed figures suggest at least 35% are needed on the Surrey side. So there could be an oversupply on the Middlesex side in the short term to medium term.

The Green school for girls/boys wasn't included on the impact assessment - seems an odd omission when Gumley House, next door, was included. Archdeacon Cambridge are very close to the Somerset Gardens admissions point, and St Mary's and St Peter's have quite exclusive admissions policies so quite a lot of their pupils would meet the criteria. Their pupils do appear to live very locally - within 739m for the 22 foundation pupils admitted last year to Archdeacon (cf. 1,476m cut-off for the 18 foundation pupils at Bishop Perrin in Whitton).

Yes, let´s home RTS opens on time and TH move to their new location in 2018. There could be an oversupply, I wonder if TH do decide to go with the proposed 200 PAN. RTS might accept some Richmond pupils freeing up some school places on the Surrey side. It´s easily accessible via the A316.

Funny that the Green school for girls/boys was omitted. Maybe just a genuine mistake.

Seems like there are a lot of local CofE primary pupils around the admissions point. It is certainly more diverse in terms of religion around the school site. It could be easy for people to get the wrong end of the stick. However, I imagine that the reasons that they thought it was appropriate to particularly consult the CofE and RC church leaders will be fully justified in the TH consultation report.

Perhaps they did also send the report to educational leaders from other faiths also to redress the balance but didn´t include them on the list for some reason. Or maybe like Jellytoto suggested there is some sort of statutory process with rules to say that they need to consult faith leaders. Like I say, I expect there will be a full explanation in the full consultation report.

This week’s print RTT has (p 3): ‘Primary to be based above supermarket’: ‘ . . The Ryde House school will be based above the supermarket, with a playground at the rear and a underground car park for customers . . ’. It will offer 2 forms of entry. It currently has 14 pupils.

I asked my other half about the diocese thing and he said the RC and CE are both local admisisions authorities so have to be in the loop for everything. They have reps on council education commities too.
I don't see why kids from faith schools shouldn't go to community secondaries if they want to, but I think I remember someone telling me it was mainly the RC schools that pushed for dropping the linked schools system. If so that was a bit rich when they were pushing for a catholic secondary at the same time.

Private school gives pupils a boost worth two extra years of education, research shows - The Durham University study suggests that the attainment gap is larger than previously thought: A comparison of Academic Achievement in Independent and State Schools, Report for the Independent Schools Council January 2016, by Francis Ndaji, John Little, Robert Coe, Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, Durham University:

‘Executive Summary: . . 4. The difference between independent and state schools in the average of best 8 GCSEs was just under 2 GCSE grades based on the mean of three cohorts. However, when the prior academic ability, deprivation, student’s gender, single sex and compositional variable were taken into account, the difference between the two sectors was 0.64 GCSE grades.

(continued) 5. The difference of 0.64 GCSE grades translates to an average difference of 0.41 standard deviation units between the GCSE performances of independent and state schools. This difference equates to a gain of about two years’ normal progress and suggests that attending an independent school is associated with the equivalent of two additional years of schooling by the age of 16. Interpreting the difference on the scale of international PISA outcomes equates it to raising the UK’s latest PISA results to be above the highest European performers, such as Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and on a par with (or close to) countries such as Japan and Korea.
6. The differences between the scores of independent and state schools in individual GCSE subjects were in the range of 0.13 to 0.77 of a grade and the highest was in History.
7. At GCSE the differences between schools in the two sectors were highest in French, History and Geography and lowest in Chemistry, Physics and Biology . . ‘

The RC and CE are both local admisisions authorities so have to be in the loop for everything. They have reps on council education commities too

I thought the admissions authorities were the schools and the council. I didn´t realise that the RC and CE were represented on council education committees. I suppose that does explain the St Richards Reynolds thing. Seems a bit unfair that other faiths are not represented on these committees. Maybe they are in other boroughs which are more ethnically diverse.

From the public pack of the Richmond schools admissions forum it says:

PRIMARY FREE SCHOOLS IN RICHMOND

1. Two primary-phase free schools opened in September 2015: Deer Park (sponsored by Bellevue Place Education Trust) in Richmond; and Twickenham Primary Academy (sponsored by GEMS Education).

1. A local high-quality educational provider is working towards the aim of submitting an application to the Department for Education later this year for a two-form primary free school to open in September 2018.

And:

The opening of Turing House Free School had impacted on other schools, some of which had vacancies. Although the Council tried to work closely with the Education Funding Agency (EFA) regarding the establishment of Free Schools, it was ultimately the EFA’s decision on whether and where to establish Free Schools. The Forum noted this update and acknowledged that the creation of free schools has an impact on school place planning and funding.

Those schools have had spaces for years so its a bit unfair to suddenly blame TH. If they had a decent Ofsted they'd be full. The only impact I can see TH having is a positive one on kids education, and on those other schools too as it have people a bit more choice and made those in power realise they needed to step in and change things at the academies.
In any case, didn't other schools release extra places at the last minute? That must have had an "impact" too. It sounds a bit biased maybe.

I do agree with you there Jellytoto. If they had decent Ofsted they would be full, TH does give more choice and hopefully the intervention to improve the academies will work.

Good point Jellytoto.

didn't other schools release extra places at the last minute? That must have had an "impact" too. It sounds a bit biased maybe.

The decision for Waldegrave and Orleans Park to offer 16 more places each was made before Turing House got signed off, since there would have been a shortfall at the East Twickenham and Richmond end before RTS opened. HA/TA could have met the need at the West Twickenham end. The problem in Richmond is that Grey Court is still attracting a large proportion from North Richmond (eventually expected to choose Kingston Academy) so there are fewer options on the Surrey side. Even after getting its approval to open, TH is too far away in Teddington to help with those in East Twickenham, Richmond, Kew, etc.

There was much criticism in this thread last year of the LA for not getting RPA to put on extra places to satisfy families in Barnes and Kew and offering places in Hampton - clearly a long way away. This year it looks like more places can be offered - an extra 30 at RPA and 20 at Grey Court, so that's good news.

Meanwhile, Turing House want to offer 25 extra pupils places at Livingston House - the difficulty is that 'As yet, the EFA have not secured a permanent site for the school.' Wonder if that means the land transfer hasn't gone through yet, or the MOL designation hasn't been lifted? Even when that happens, it's going to take a few years to build in the Heathfield site. It does seem academic for TH to be planning to increase pupil numbers when they've got nowhere to put them. Perhaps we will learn more about progress in their consultation report. Or when their funding agreement gets published - there could be a deadline by which all of this is meant to happen, as there was with Deer Park School. At least that seems sorted out now.

muminlondon2: The proposed TH site is in Springfield Road, Heathfield ward, LB Richmond but belongs to LB Hounslow - is that correct? There has been no planning application, not even for outline permission to get change of use. This must be the first step and entails consent to develop a MOL site, which will be contentious but can be justified by the public interest. So EFA may at this stage have committed themselves only to purchase subject to planning permission.

If so, the next step is the planning application . . there’s no word on www2.richmond.gov.uk/PlanData2/Planning_MajorDevelopments.aspx which includes plans for the College and St RR school sites.

How long is the Livingston House lease - three or four years? They were going to take 100 per year (e.g. for three years they'd need 12 classrooms of 25 plus assembly/gym/canteen space and offices, 16 if they have to be there for four years) but if they're hoping to take 125 this year and next, they'll fill up sooner than later or have bigger form groups.

Meanwhile, isn't the 2-form entry primary school meant to replace them at Livingstone house? If the plan is from 2018, that's 3 years for TH again (unless they have another site up their sleeve). The primary would need 14 classes plus a hall/canteen and office. So that could be the spot.

I also wonder if the reason Turing House proposed increasing its PAN, and try to accept additional children into its temporary site, is because one of RET's other schools has actually had to decrease its PAN to 100 and 'That number of places will be offered in Year 7 annually' (no interest expressed in that consultation, it seems - "no consultation responses received"!!).

So that would affect the funding of the chain overall - which is relatively small in pupil numbers at a time when funding has become more of a challenge. Kings School in Hove was meant to be in temporary accommodation for three years but it's got to spend a fourth year in its temporary site; it has a permanent site agreed, but it's sharing it with a primary school. In any case, it didn't manage to attract even the reduced 100 intake for the first couple of years according to Edubase.

I think we are gong to run out of posts, by the way, so I've created a new thread if you're interested in continuing:

Richmond Borough Schools Chat 8.

There was something about the extra 25 in this week's newsletter. They're doing 5 classes rather than 4. It doesn't say it'll be the same the year after though. I think they'll be ok for space as they're only using part of the building right now.

I'm pretty sure that Livingston House has always been described as for 3 years. Then the LA has said its preferred option for Teddington is a primary school on that site which will presumably be badly needed by 2018. Perhaps this will even be the TH primary school that they said they would like eventually. I'm sure the lease could be extended if the secondary needs to stay (unless the owner wants to turn it into flats like every other office building in Teddington!)

See you on the new thread?