Richmond Borough Schools Chat 9

[ChrisSquire2]

This thread follows on from Richmond Borough Schools Chat 8 starting February 2016.
News and opinions on all the changes to schools in Richmond borough.

See also:

Richmond Borough Schools Chat 7 starting May 2015

Links to earlier threads (1-6), starting in February 2011

Esher gives priority to all pupils coming from schools with no sixth form of their own so that should mean Twickenham Academy students get in automatically provided that they get the grades they need which is generally Bs in the subjects they want to do at A-level or a similar subject. Not sure about Waldegrave as so oversubscribed that it doesn't seem to take many girls that aren't from Waldegrave even if they live on the doorstep but would be very good if it did give them priority.

Can’t find the oversubscriptiom criteria for Waldegrave or Teddington yet but Esher College has an earlier and separate entry process. Twickenham School is the only one specifically mentioned from LBRuT for priority. So while sixth forms are a bit like the link system - current pupils have priority - there are private school pupils who hope to transfer to Esher, especially from the smaller more mixed ability privates. I think it is fair for TS pupils to have priority over them.

Will be interesting to see who is appointed Head at Waldegrave. Big shoes to fill.

New Council Leader signals intention to look at alternative Turing House School Sites

The new Leader of Richmond upon Thames Council has written to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) to say that the council is willing to explore alternatives sites as Turing House School looks to move to a permanent site. ESFA has recently acquired land next to Hospital Bridge Road for possible redevelopment from Labour controlled Hounslow Council. However, it is not close to the school’s original catchment area and many local people have concerns over the impact of any development on the Metropolitan Open Land.

Cllr Gareth Roberts said,“In our manifesto we said we would prioritise suitable alternative sites for the permanent home of Turing House School. As part of that commitment I have written to ESFA, the body responsible for the overseeing the delivery of the permanent site, and said we would be happy to explore suitable alternatives including the Uxbridge Road site”. The new administration has also committed to providing a public report into the Uxbridge Road land to give residents the information they need to be able to understand the pros and cons of trying to use that land for the school rebuild.

Cllr Michael Wilson, Heathfield ward councillor said, “In 2016 the previous Conservative leader refused to explore the David Lloyd as a possible alternative, which could significantly impact the Council’s ability to influence ESFA at this late stage. The Liberal Democrats are not happy with ‘Plan A’ and it is clear that in spite of the vocal concerns of residents over several years, the Conservative Council had no plan B. We are very supportive of the school but as the Borough marks Clean Air Day we must look to try and protect the limited green space in Whitton and Heathfield”.

Twickenham Tribune # 85 p 12 twickenhamtribune.com/PDF/Twickenham%20Tribune%200085.pdf

It is incredible that this school still needs a home. Richmond have got a pretty good record on delivering on these areas.

Hounslow are offering 13 new secondary classes in 2018. This will have a knock on so having another school basically in Hounslow, admissions point aside, is not a good move.

They need to hurry this up or the soon to be year 10s will only have their final year, Year 13 in the final site. Anyway, the site fiasco hasn’t impacted on outcomes. I know people there who love the school. The same said for TS and the new Richmond School. So much choice.

Isn't that just the Lib Dems looking like they're doing something about their election pledge so that when the school gets its planning permission they can hold their hands up and say "we did what we could mate". The school are just about to start their planning consultation ffs! Too little, too late is an understatement. Anyway, when we went to one of the parents meetings they explained that the David lloyd site was more difficult for planning otherwise they would have been able to go for it. It's not exactly a public park, but it has public access, which carries weight in planning terms.

I think they are both difficult sites for planning purposes as they are both Metropolitan Open Land where you are not meant to build without exceptional circumstances. My understanding is that the Heathfield site is located in an area with a lower % of MOL so building there is worse on that measurement whereas the Uxbridge Road site was subject to certain undertakings by the previous Tory administration some years ago which made them reluctant to consider it but are no longer valid perhaps? I would certainly prefer that site if David Lloyd offered to share some of its facilities! It was never going to be easy once St. RR got the Clifden Road site and the Council didn't give Turing House the slot at Richmond upon Thames College.

Wasn’t TH introduced to serve the needs of Fullwell residents. How would TH being based in Twickenham - Clifden Rd or the Richmond College site - help the area of need it was devised to meet?

If Richmond college had offered them their site, I suppose the first condition would have been that they ditch their sixth form.

When we went to look round RTS they said it was expected that most of their students would go to Richmond College for sixth form.

Here is the Waldegrave sixth form admissions doc, and there's nothing on their about priority for Twickenham School. Where did you read it? My friend's son goes to Twickenham and she says they haven't been told anything about it. upload.reactcdn.co.uk/waldegrave/uploads/asset_file/3_807_3.0-oversubscription-criteria-2019-20-yr-12.pdf

I thought I heard it in conversation but I must have misunderstood! I realise that not many external candidates get in, but they do have the 40 places reserved for boys, and distance priority is directly to the school rather than areas A and B, so Twickenham resident pupils might at least have a better chance than Richmond pupils. But then it also seems to depend on the subject groups and whether they have availability (and there are minimum GCSE grade criteria for each subject).

Justtw2 Turing House wanted the Clifden site which is a very short journey from the area it was set up to serve (basically originally it was children who were at Trafalgar and Stanley schools, especially boys who could no longer get into Teddington School). The RUTS site wasn't made public until the Council announced it was setting up a school there but it would still be an easier journey from Fulwell than the Heathfield site but I don't suppose they would have wanted to ditch their sixth form anyway.

Last year there were Waldegrave 6th Form places for boys in Teddington but none for girls unless they wanted to do an obscure subject combination that wasn't full.

They do collaborate on some undersubscribed subjects though - that includes languages and computing. The most popular A-level subject was Maths but both schools seemed to do very well last year.

I mean Teddington School collaborated with Waldegrave if that wasn’t clear.

Maybe I'm missing something but how can they reserve 40 places for boys when they only guarantee a minimum of 20 places to external applicants? It doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't it be a minimum of 40 places for external applicants instead? Maybe its just a typo.

I suppose it does say "up to" 40 boys, so it might be as low as 20 if enough Waldegrave girls get the grades to fill all the other places. Cosy!

There are twice as many boys at Waldegrave in year 13 as there are at Teddington. 40 or more in both years, currently. Statistics just out.

Turing House still 2:1 boys to girls in Y7.

I think there are twice as many students in the 6th form at Waldegrave as at Teddington. In the current Year 13 they took huge numbers of Teddington students, both boys and girls, and raised their overall number to 160, so in the current Year 12 they had to cut their numbers overall and only had room for boys, plus a few external girls doing unusual combinations who were willing to not be told they had a place until after the beginning of term. I was told there was an internal row about the way in which Waldegrave sucked up a huge number of Teddington students in current Year 13. For current Year 12 they did joint interviews and the Waldegrave Head of 6th Form bent over backwards to tell all Teddington girls that there was no way that they would get in and it would be much better for them if they stayed put! She still wanted the boys though!

Yes, and even more than twice doing A-level this year at Waldegrave compared to Teddington. Waldegrave has 30% of the KS5 pupils from six schools.

Meanwhile Twickenham and Hampton have 200 pupils in Y7 between them and Turing House and RTS have around 220. Four half schools, three permanent buildings. Small schools just aren’t really economic and sixth forms are hard to fill even for the bigger comps. Also long-term forecasting never took into account Brexit and the impact that might have on pupils and capital budgets.

I think the Year 7 at Twickenham is less (65) and the same forecast for next year. I thought TH and RTS were full. I know people who have offers they are not happy with, I will pass this intellegence on.

I think parents and teachers prefer small schools - it's one of the reasons we chose Turing House and I know others who chose RTS for the same reason. Teddington is way too big and I know parents who find their teenagers feeling lost or overlooked at Orleans and Waldegrave too. I get that the funding is more difficult, especially "in these austere times", but I for one would happily pay more tax for the Government to fund education better.

Current year 7 at Turing is definitely full because I know someone still on the waiting list.

RTS and TH may be full according to the intake they expected, yes - not to mislead. TS is around the figure you mention. Hampton High has only a few in sixth form so I didn’t count it in KS5 schools - has that sixth form also been announced to close? Census 2018

Well I think its better that TS has 65 who want to be there than 180 that don't. Fingers crossed more will want to be there now after their Ofsted, and all the marketing but they shouldn't be denied a choice in the matter.

TS at least has a permanent site, even if its numbers are too low to offer some subject specialisms or setting without sharing with HH (which must be possible). I doubt that TH can open a sixth form on its temporary sites. There will soon be more pupils in TH’s temporary place than at TS.

Just seen that there are minimum guidelines for sixth forms anyway (200, i.e. 100 per year). If only one out of the eight RuT sixth forms opened actually meets that criteria in practice, that might also be a barrier for TH. Also research on how big a sixth form class has to be to be economically viable. That probably rules out music, languages, even sciences in some schools... but the sixth form colleges have lower numbers on some courses.