Richmond Borough Schools Chat 8

[muminlondon2]

This thread follows on from Richmond Borough Schools Chat 7.

News and opinions on all the changes to schools in Richmond borough.

I think the basis of Councillor Samuels remarks must be this www.richmond.gov.uk/fulwell_squires_stg_final_report.pdf which was published ten years ago and does refer to the challenge by some people with legal and property experience access. However that is in relation to the sale of the Fullwell golf course and farm to Squires and the price achieved. I do not see why, if they did not challenge the building of the Amida, they would be likely to emerge in opposition to a state school providing needed places when it is still the London Planning policy until / if it is changed by the new Mayor that MOL status is trumped by the need for school places?

Even accounting for the fact that the Amida presumably was classed in the same way as a golf club house (as they often have swimming pools, gyms, tennis courts ......)

Very frustrating to watch as ever! I agree that the meeting didn't really answer the question of why the Fulwell MOL land is so much more difficult to build on than the Whitton MOL land - there doesn't seem to have been any up to date comparison of their ecological value. There is a general failure to publish any comprehensive comparison of the various possible sites including all the potential planning issues eg. the Whitton site appears to have huge access issues but that wasn't mentioned. I'm afraid the failure to mount a proper campaign against building on the site in Whitton has made it seem an easier option. I agree that Cllr. Samuels has probably blocked the use of the Fulwell site (which is really in Hampton) and he has a huge amount of influence.

It was extremely annoying to hear Cllr. Hodgins say that Turing House was only set up to provide extra choice not because places were needed. That simply wasn't true because at the time all the projections, including the Council's, were showing the 150 places it offered would be needed to meet overall demand by the time it opened. At that point Hampton Academy was almost full and appeared to be improving and even Twickenham Academy was supposedly getting more popular. The Tory line has always been more about deflecting critisism of their decision to give the only available site to the Catholic Church for St RR and then pinching the Richmond College site for Lord True's own landswap project with Haymarket both of which should have been offered to Turing House.

I do agree that the selection of "the Swedes" was a pretty rubbish decision that everyone involved should regret and that a lot of children have been badly let down. I don't understand why the contract didn't allow much more intervention by the local authority but no doubt the Government had standard terms and wouldn't hand over the money unless the private sector was free to do its worst. I think someone posted the contract here and it only showed the ability to give notice after 7 years. Having one governor on the Board, especially Cllr. Hodgins with his important day job and living the other end of the Borough, was never likely to be enough. Not clear how Nick Whitfield helped the schools as they never really seemed to improve.

It's a shame BayJay is no longer with us to comment on all this!

Cllr Hodgins was right to point out that the council never was a co-sponsor, as the LST incorporation document shows (Kunskapsskolan as sole sponsor and member) registered while the LibDems still ran the council. I also believe those supporting the TH proposal were motivated by the lack of choice that resulted from the academy decision and link school changes. The council projected 100 places to be provided by a free school rather than 150, I think.

Interesting that Cllr Roberts is also a parent at TH. But Lord True was right to apologise for speculating on his school choice options in the way he did, especially considering his own children went to private schools. It was very bad tempered, and clearly very hot and sweaty on that night.

If the Conservatives were so massively aware of the lack of choice at this end of the borough as they made out in their speeches, it just makes the St Richard Reynolds decision all the more disgraceful!
I'm pretty sure that at the time they were just banging on about how much space there was at TA/HA how much money and effort was going into improving them, and how they'd be fine if we would just all support them by sending our kids there. Hypocrites.

Just got round to watching the web-cast – what an advert for local politics that is! Appalling!

Like others on here, I saw no meaningful comparison of the two sites and no solid reasons why Fulwell was rejected. Nothing was said as to why whoever objected to the previous sale of land would, 15-20 years later, object to a school at the opposite end of the site. It’s nonsensical!

Cllr. Samuels found it all traumatic – how patronising. How traumatic does he think it’s been for Turing House in setting up this school in such a hostile environment? How traumatic is it for local families who have fretted for years about school places and wrestled with the options available? How traumatic is it for current/future TH parents with the uncertainty of site and the constant reassessment of the admissions policy? How traumatic is it for the local Whitton community which obviously struggles with school-generated traffic? He looks out of touch and letting his community down badly.

Cllr. Hodgins seems quite happy to re-write history. He knows full well that TH was established to meet a real need as well as provide more choice and is firmly rooted in Fulwell/West-Twickenham.

The EFA has obviously taken the council planning advice at face value and has not investigated further. A crying shame.

I agree with all above. What I don't understand is whether this is the end of the debate. As in, Whitton will now go ahead as the site regardless and the concerns raised are simple dismissed. I don't fully understand who talks to the EFA and if they even have any of this information or would be even interested in it. It seems wrong that a few councillors can prevent a proper investigation of the alternative site when locally it seems this is what people want looked at. They said that the site has been discussed, and dismissed as unsuitable. I think I would feel satisfied if I could even see the reasoning behind that.

mum to be fair I think Lord True was actually responding to the Councillor who spoke earlier and was the one to make it personal, and was back peddling on that. However Lord True lives in what was, when his daughter started school, the catchment for both Sheen Mount and East Sheen Schools, both then excellent and sought after state primary schools (whatever the OFSTED terminology was then) including unsuccessfully by my family, so implying that the decision to go private was connected to uncertainty around RPA was disingenuous. He didn't even try to argue that was behind the decision to send his sons to Eton, which of itself manifests a certain unconscious misogyny, but he should not even try to claim he has had any experience of the sorts of stress parents without the offer of a good state school place are put under. He is clearly unaware that most parents would not make different decisions on private / state schooling on the basis of gender.

To be fair to Councillor Hodgins there was a period when both HA and TA had mildly positive OFSTED reviews of their progress and their leadership and plans in place. There was a lot of talking big from the TA Head and community support for the HA head. The Conservatives were certainly relying at the time on deflecting criticism of their Catholic School Plans by playing up these apparent improvements and urging parents to send their children there, both Councillor Hodgins and Nick Whitfield are on record at the various Council, Cabinet and Scritiny meetings at the time as saying they were achieving great things, and parents just needed time to go there to appreciate that. Now they have actually done something about it, it is good they at least concede a lot of parents and children were let down, even if they don't shoulder blame. Many parents know differently. The fact remains something has been done and I would much prefer that my Councillors focused on the future and not throwing mud at each other about what happened in the past. I am sure on all sides it is more complicated than we know.

I was hoping that perhaps there would be pressure on Councillor Samuels to enable Tania Mattias to pull a rabbit out of the hat that would please a lot of constituents on this side of the borough and honour her GE endorsement of the concerns of the people of Whitton. However I am sure she has bigger issues with very full post bags to contend even on schools. Who welcomes the prospect of the school place demand being satisfied by Tiffin satellites in the borough and maybe more exclusive faith schools?

I also wonder if suddenly Councillor Samuels will be willing to undergo the "trauma" of potential objections to a proposal to build a school on this land if it is a Tiffin satellite. He was certainly prepared to undergo the considerable trauma of dealing with considerable numbers of objectors (far more than on any of the issues connected with Squires /Amida/David Lloyd) and prepared to dig deep in their pockets and time and with access to legal expertise to deliver the site for an exclusive faith school........

Who welcomes the prospect of the school place demand being satisfied by Tiffin satellites in the borough and maybe more exclusive faith schools?

Neither. Is there any proposal from Tiffin to do this? I think one option that will be discussed in parliament, however, will be partial selection 'open to all schools'. A big free for all. This would create the same dilemma as academy conversion - if one applies, all the original converters will. But it will only segregate the schools further and push more families into the private system.

Another consequence of reintroducing partial selection by ability - e.g. like the Herts so-called comprehensives that actually have 10% selection by ability on top of 10% 'aptitude' for e.g. music - combined with obligatory quotas for pupils on FSM - could be that more pupils are taken from outside the borough, reducing local catchments even further. At the same time, I'd predict the days of parent-proposed free schools are over, since most of the recent wave approved were chain-sponsored academies or faith schools, and we will be facing very uncertain economic times and limited budgets post-Brexit.

If new traditional grammars did get the go-ahead, with the options for 13+ or 14+, not only would it bring chaos to school budgets as pupil numbers fluctuate year in, year out, but there could be some other unpalatable consequences for parents. For example, lower test thresholds set for boys to ensure even numbers, since girls often score more highly, more girls getting the places, or further segregation into boys and girls' schools (as if greater social segregation and comprehensives turned back into secondary moderns wasn't bad enough). You'd probably also see a divide in some areas between highly motivated children of immigrants in the grammar schools and white working class children in the 'rest', a racial divide that wasn't seen in the 1950s glory days. That could upset quite a few 'bring backers', as grammar school supporters have been called.

I agree with all those points, and that increasing selection will increase parental anxiety still further, further putting pressure on children. The only real beneficiaries would be the tutoring factories, and even most of those who do have the money and motivation to have their children sitting around a kitchen table practising endless VR and NVR tests for years on end (apparently the angst takes hold in Year 3 these days), a learning process that has no educational value other than increasing test scores, would prefer not to put them through it. This borough demonstrates through the demand for places at the existing outstanding comprehensives, and now at Turing, that more places are needed in outstanding co-ed inclusive community schools, where bright children do well in top sets and children with different needs are also catered for.

I am not aware that Tiffin have any pre existing plans to expand but should this pass through parliament I assume it would be a logical step. I don't know what the geographical spread of applicants /pupils is but Richmond might well be seen as a possible site for expansion. Although perhaps Hounslow which has an even bigger growth in demand would also be a candidate.

I would also much rather see the management teams for outstanding comprehensives being the ones to be involved in opening new non selective schools. I do not understand the logic of Grammar Schools being required to do this if they want to expand, when their competence is in running selective schools not ones that cater for all pupil needs, and they have little experience of supporting disadvantaged children.

I don't really see Tiffin opening a school in Richmond because both schools have already expanded. TGS is already so close to the borough boundary that it is practically a Richmond school already, with travel links just as good as for Kingston children, an option for those who are motivated to apply but one that thankfully covers a catchment too wide to do any damage to comprehensives. It might end up competing with itself, especially if it had a narrowly defined catchment for Richmond, which would lower standards in its existing schools. If it poached pupils and staff from the nine existing comprehensives in Richmond it would face hostility from a school community of about 12,000 children, up to 1,000 teachers and staff, 6,000 parents... and me..,

Yes, keep out Tiffin. It would be disastrous to start introducing even more selection and de-stabilising the situation. The Tiffins just really aren't the right schools for a lot of children anyway - lots of clever kids don't fancy them at all.

33George I agree the process has been horribly opaque and is really a complete subversion of what should be an open and democratic planning process. CPRE have done a report on this in relation to free schools which I may be able to find a link to at some point. The Fulwell site apparently has more planning and legal restrictions on it than the Whitton one as it is classified as Green Belt and Public Open Space not just MOL and it is a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation and there are legal covenants on it I think. The Council is currently consulting on amending the local plan and may come forward with a proposal to take the Whitton site out of MOL. But that process will take too long for a 2018 opening so the school will probably have to put in a planning application to build before the MOL issue is resolved. There will be an opportunity to comment at the planning application stage and the Council has to show there are "very special circumstances" that justify building on MOL. The planning consent for the Teddington and Ham Hydro project was overturned by the Court of Appeal on the basis of failure to show "very special circumstances" and that was just a rebuild of an existing structure so building a whole new school is hardly a pushover.

The link to the CPRE report that talks about the subversion of the planning process and refers to Hounslow cases and Turing House being cited in Whitton is here: CPRE

Since it was published the High Court has refused the judicial review of LB Hounslow's decision to allow the Nishram School to be built on Metropolitan Open Land as discussed on this thread in July. Not clear how that was justified as can't find any detailed reports of the case!

Schools need space and playing fields so open land is exactly where they should be built. I expect Orleans Park, Tedfington etc were built on open land too. CPRE are right to point out that there isn't much open land left and its previous but that's an over-population problem.Inless they have some alternative ideas up their sleeves they just have their heads in the sand. Maybe they should bash it out with the Green Party who complain when schools are built without enough open space.
In any case as open spaces go the Whitton site isn't anything like the gem it's being made out to be. Its a field with no access to the public. At least a school would open it up to community use for sports fields and the like which has to be a benefit.

Orleans School is on a brownfield site:

‘ . . the [Orleans] estate [was sold] to the shipping magnate William Cunard in 1882 . . [and then] after WWI to the Crane River Sand and Ballast Company who demolished the (very fine William & Mary) house and excavated over 200,000 tons of sand and gravel from the site . . in 1927 what remained of the buildings, including the Octagon, . . were rescued from demolition when the Hon. Mrs Nellie Levy . . purchased the property, pledging that if she decided to sell she would give first refusal to Twickenham Corporation. In 1930 she married her 2nd husband, architect Basil Ionides . . ’

She bequeathed it all to toTwickenham council, who used the gravel pits for landfill, which was grassed over. The northern part was used for the school and the rest left to nature - hence its very scrappy mix of sycamore trees and scrub. It is a haven for foxes, etc. but could be used to expand the school in the future.

orleansgardensblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/%E2%80%A2-history-of-orleans-gardens/

Parents and school pupils currently in year six are invited to an open evening to find out more about the new secondary school in Twickenham . . On Monday 3 October from 6.30 to 8.30pm, parents and prospective pupils have the opportunity to find out more about the school at an Open Evening at The Stoop Rugby Ground . . For more information, or to RSVP, visit the Richmond upon Thames School website or follow us on Twitter @RTS_Twickenham.

(LBRuT press release)

FEWeek has: Bigger is better for sixth forms:

Size matters, at least when it comes to sixth forms – as FE Week discovered when we investigated the issues surrounding smaller providers. Mick Fletcher, an FE policy expert and the founder of Policy Consortium, insisted that the government decision to set the minimum number of students at 200 was “well-founded”. Smaller sixth forms “don’t perform very well”, he explained. “There’s a very strong relationship between the size of a sixth form and its performance – the smaller, the worse.” This 200-student “break-point”, he said, had been based on Ofsted reports and analysis of success rates.

. . But despite these well-founded concerns, FE Week has found that many existing sixth forms already have fewer than 200 students. According to Education Funding Agency . . of the 613 school sixth forms listed, the average size was just 209 16- to 18-year-olds – with 85 schools having fewer than 100 . . In contrast, no general FE or sixth form college had numbers like that: the average student body across the 34 FE colleges was 2,497, while for the 93 SFCs it was 1,736.

. . There is concern that new sixth forms are being opened without a view to the wider picture of 16- to-19 provision. James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, has complained about “the absence of a competitive, demand-led process”. He said this climate had “led to the creation of many new sixth form providers (particularly academy sixth forms) in areas where there is already an oversupply of good or outstanding provision” – an outcome which he said had “forced schools and colleges to increase their marketing spend”.

Mr Fletcher argued that increasing choice of institutions actually reduced choice for young people, rather than increasing it. In order to be financially viable, small sixth forms have to limit the number of subjects they can offer, he explained. “They limit choice, and by reducing the intake of other institutions, force them to reduce choice as well,” he said . .
………..
How large are our 6th forms?

How large are our 6th forms?
Excellent question!
It is logical that smaller 6th forms can not only offer fewer subjects, but also restrict the combinations.
At one local independent school with a very large 6th form,the variety of subjects is kaleidoscopic, with eclectic combinations - eg Latin, Theatre Studies, Geography, Further Maths. Smaller schools cannot offer this. Even more so when students want to mix BTECs and A levels, Pre-Us and Extended Projects, not to mention International Bac...
Which kind of brings us back to the desirability of just a few large centres - maybe call them Richmond College, Esher College, Kinston College...??

MrsSalvo There is a lot of difference though between a sixth form with year groups of 200 and the year groups of a 1000 that you had at Richmond College. A lot of pupils did feel lost /unsupported there, even if they did have many more options opened up to them. Difficult to make friends, especially with whole school years arriving together from the main local state schools. Pupils found they were having to chase and harry the staff to get UCAS references at all, let alone that reflected their particular achievements and strengths. With up to twenty tutor groups for the more popular subjects like Psychology a tutor might have contact with literally hundreds of pupils, and for less than a year so not surprising there were issues. That is a very different proposition to the bigger independent sixth forms, presumably you mean Latymer / Hampton where at least some of the tutors may have known some of the students right through their school career and have to get to know far fewer in such a short time.

Some of the new sixth forms do look to be too small but then some of the independent school sixth forms are small too, St Cs and Ibstock for instance, but the pupils do well because they get so much focus even if they miss out on option choices and what would be the critical mass for decent discussion in a tutor group. Some pupils want that choice.

Richmond Borough Schools Chat 9

Two questions:

1. Don't we have about 400 posts' worth of space left on this thread, still?
2. The '200' number - surely that's 200 across Y12 and Y13, so 100 per year group (and you might have an extra 20-30 in the lower sixth doing retakes who don't continue)? Otherwise each school would require every single student to stay on after GCSEs to do an academic A-level route, and that's an unrealistic goal given average 5A-C pass rates of 60% or so per school cohort.

MuminLondon: quite right - my mistake. Let us carry on here and disregard Chat 9 until we need it.

At Hampton Court House they have 6 pupils in the Upper Sixth and 10 in the Lower Sixth. I'm not sure how that is economical but maybe as the hours are 1-7pm they get some of the teachers doing a late shift who teach elsewhere during the day.