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

I agree it is odd.

I could sympathise with resentment towards the process and coming up with an alternative proposal for a parent led inclusive School. That is exactly how Turing came into being, and on these pages too! But this time it is not the Council that are the decision makers so going after them is the wrong target, and proposing another faith school is divisive as the Council found out last time.

To be fair I think Christ’s catchment has shrunk, for the places not selected on faith at least. There have been families in Barnes and Kew who did not get offered school places in first allocations. With that sort of pressure on places no doubt there have been more parents playing the faith card to get in. But faith places do not meet the school place need In fact the Council only succeeded in its arguments for establishing St RR at the Judicial Review by saying it was wanted not needed!

A lot of concerns too that the school will have a conservative evangelical ethos because of the online presence of some of the founders. I think the proposers need to answer questions about not just faith admissions (which of course even if it is inclusive at first it could change in future admissions rounds in response to pressure from parents as we have seen with many other faith schools in the borough) but also the Science curriculum, PSHE etc. I don’t think many local parents would welcome a science curriculum that gave equivalence to creationist theories and the theory of evolution for instance.

science curriculum that gave equivalence to creationist theories and the theory of evolution

If they did that they'd be closed down because it's not allowed in science lessons. It's not illegal in RE lessons though.

This is the Head of FBS “I want to walk into science labs at FBS and find boys (and teachers) who question, challenge, explore, analyse and consider, critically, absolutely everything. I don’t want FBS boys to just accept things because everyone else does. I want FBS boys to be risk takers, discoverers, courageous, unafraid of making mistakes or going against the crowd, showing the ability to back up their views with reasoned arguments, kindness and respect. Be that evaluating the theory of creationism or that of evolution.

The Education secretary Damian Hinds said recently that he thinks alternatives to the theory of evolution must be presented, allowing for critical assessment in schools. At FBS we believe it is the role of a school to make students question and think openly, not be blinded by bias.” www.fulhamboysschool.org/news/why-richard-dawkins-would-not-teach-science-at-fbs-we-only-appoint-good-scientists/

And the Kew Scientist Richard Buggs who created the original petition to the Council whilst clearly carrying out leading scientific research in the field of plant biology seems to be as concerned privately with the possibility of a genetic bottleneck of two individuals, the Adam and Eve of the human species, because it is a question often asked by those of abrahamic religions, as he is with the school issue. He does at least concede it might be seen as a bizarre question amongst some —the vast majority of the Scientific community— richardbuggs.com.

Blimey!

Fulham boys is designated as a Church of England school, with the backing of the Diocese of London. It doesn't look as if the diocese is backing the Cromwell school. That must be why they're saying saying it has a generic Christian ethos.

Ivan Baird, a member of the team proposing the school is an elder of the Duke Street Church in Richmond, and Richard Buggs is a member. it is an independent evangelical church with all that entails in terms of supporting creationism and opposition to same sex relationships. This is an example www.dukestreetchurch.com/sermon/same-sex-attraction-grace-and-truth/?fbclid=IwAR2WM8WSbuxV-YedfyG1V3mMz3kCh_D0dXvAMeMLzqTfCWxfGfeDvVivhzc Mr Buggs work on the genetic bottleneck is used as scientific evidence to support both arguments.

Given that these two members of the team clearly have strongly held beliefs I wonder why they have not been upfront about them in the publicity for the school proposal. Mr Buggs never returned to the Next Door site to respond to questions from various parents about the proposed schools ethos

The more you look into this the more it rings alarm bells.

Mr Ebenezer, the Headmaster at Fulham Boys' School is an author of evangelical books and speaks regularly at various Independent Evangelical churches, here are sermons he delivered at Hounslow West and Amyand Park Evangelical church but there are several more churches he has spoken at. www.hwec.org.uk/index.php/preacher/alunebenezer/ www.amyand.org.uk/sermons/speaker/21-alun-ebenezer so his article that hints at giving equivalence to theories of creationism and evolution reflects his own creationist beliefs.

The school recently hosted Gavin Peacock for a week. He is a former footballer but is now an evangelical preacher and the Director of International Outreach for CBMW. The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is an American Organisation that champions "Complementarianism" basically that Adam and Eve were created by God and are the christian model. Any divergence from those models in terms of identity, sexuality or gender is wrong. More background here cbmw.org/cbmw-in-london-uk/ but as Mr Ebenezer the Headmaster says at 11.30 in this sermon to Amyand Park Chapel in Twickenham,"Wives submit, men love, children obey." www.amyand.org.uk/files/sermons/1521413377_VnsyD_20180318_AM_AE_ChristiansAtHome_Ephesians.mp3 Mr Peacocks twitter reflects his beliefs in male superiority. "We have turned against boys and forgotten a simple truth: the energy, competitiveness and corporal daring of normal males are responsible for much of what is right in the world" "When godly men lead and love, godly women follow and flourish." "In God’s structure of humanity he made male and female: him before her, her from him to help him, and him to treat her as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh in this thing called marriage." "In the face of cultural pressure and a feminist ideology set forth against the structure of marriage and the home, thankfully there are still many humble Christian women who gladly submit to and respect their husbands for the sake of the gospel." twitter.com/GPeacock8?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor It seems hard to believe that Mr Peacock did not with the full support of the Headmaster proselytise these beliefs to the boys. Indeed the School Chaplain reports that "Gavin spent a week at FBS getting involved with a range of activities. He spoke at assemblies for all four houses, encouraging them to be men who were courageous, thinkers, self-controlled and took on responsibility." www.fulhamboysschool.org/about-us/christian-ethos/chaplains-updates/

So this is potentially what we would expect in the proposed Thomas Cromwell School. This is happening under the supervision of the CofE, the proposed school would not even have that.......

Dickensian name, Dickensian ethos.

RTT coverage of the Mortlake school proposal ... www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/17071916.richmond-parents-start-application-for-new-school-in-mortlake/

Not a hint of the background. Unfortunately Fulham Boys’ School seems to be a darling of the Tory right with Boris Johnson amongst the supporters so you could worry it has powerful friends in government. Whether they understand the true nature of those involved is another matter. I can believe Boris signing up to misogyny and the old fashioned Anglican ethos of schools like Eton but creationism and extreme moral rectitude on the part of men not so much?

mum Thomas Cromwell was long before Dickens and an odd role model for children given he was responsible for the two divorces and one of the beheadings of Henry VIIIs wives .....

Turing have now submitted plans for their Whitton site, and almost at the same time the council have published a review into the David Lloyd site to try and rule that in or out of the equation. The DL site review is being discussed on Weds this week at the Council meeting. It's a shame its a bit late for certainty for those submitting secondary applications this week.

I wouldn't worry queenofstoneage. There's never been a single year group of Turing parents that have had certainty, and yet they still manage to fill it every year. My two love it there.

I haven't read the David Lloyd site report yet - someone said it was buried in the agenda of a council meeting somewhere. Does anyone have the link?

cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=775&MId=4529 is the link it's found under the meeting scheduled for this Weds. Basically pdfs under point four. It's not that easy to understand, and I think more or less says that DL is difficult, but not impossible. However the time needed to make it possible feasibly rules it out.

Awesome, thanks.

I live in Hampton Hill and I find it very suspicious that councillors have kept the whole "David Lloyd as alternative site" thing very quiet locally. Burton's Road is a nightmare rat run in the mornings already and lethal for cyclists. Uxbridge Road is grim. The Macdonalds roundabout is a blackspot for accidents. All these things would raise their ugly heads on top of any planning issues, and it's a far more ecologically rich and diverse site than the Hospital Bridge Road field, so I'm not sure it's the holy grail the Whitton people make it out to be. (Even though it would be great for us).

No, I agree, but still the point remains that the Whitton site is not near the catchment point, yet if you moved the catchment point to be in Whitton that could have terrible impact on Twickenham Academy. So therefore Whitton get the school, but not most of the benefit. I will be interested to hear what happens at the council discussion on Weds.

Whitton will get far less benefit if the school is at David Lloyd, because then they'll lose their 20% priority too!

I've read the report now and can't see anything other than pigs flying over the idea of the David Lloyd site. They'd have to persuade DL to give up their tennis courts, chop down a load of mature trees (definitely bats there - we've seen them), re-route a public footpath, get over "Site of Nature Importance" - there's bound to be far more chance of a rare species being found because it's a very rich natural site - and then overcome the MOL issue too. If the first test for overcoming MOL is "have all less restricted sites been ruled out" then the answer is no while Hospital Bridge Road exists. Even if you take the view that all that is worth fighting for to save the Hospital Bridge Road field from development then it would take at least 5 years and in the meantime our kids are in temporary accommodation. So my support is absolutely for Whitton. It's not ideal for us in Hampton Hill, but loads of my kids' friends are from the West Twickenham area which is far closer to Hospital Bridge Road, and they're all happy for it to be there. They all chose the school expecting it to be there and just want it to happen now.

The scrutiny Council meeting was last night, and was filmed, it's actually very interesting to listen to the arguments made about the potential DL site for Turing. End result was that they agreed that DL is not a suitable site for Turing, and needs to be dismissed. I am slightly disappointed, not that they dismissed it, but that the site is not suitable.
What really does annoy me though is that this was not all out in the open before now. The constant spectre of the possibility of a "Closer to catchment" site for the school has been astonishingly unhelpful all round and I think has created divisions where they were not needed. At least with the independent report done and properly and openly debated, and then dismissed all parties now know where they stand!

Good to hear there's finally some closure on the DL site. I wonder if the council will publicise it though. If they don't then people will still not believe HBR is the best site available.

Not sure how this might affect primary free schools in Richmond but the private school group/family behind the trust running Twickenham Primary School (GEMS) now has a controlling stake in a private school group behind the trust running Deer Park School (Bellevue Education). Not much in the news but a mention here. Maybe those in the ‘edubusinesses’ will understand what it all means.

The Hong King investor in Bellevue died recently, that might be a factor? Both Deer Park and Twickenham Primary seem to be doing well though, Parents are positive and Twickenham Primary was judged outstanding by OFSTED. files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50005040

Not sure when Old Deer Park will get its Lidl loft accommodation though, apparently work on the site has come to a standstill (along with the traffic) as they dispute who pays for concreting the sewer.

The Hong Kong investor was a person? I remember past links to a Saudi investor and a company implicated in Malaysian financial scandals (very long read here). However, if GEMS took over Bellevue, that story is no longer relevant. GEMS itself has a very complex global structure. But good to know locally the school it sponsors is doing well.

On another issue, I’ve been trying to figure out proposed new bus routes H22 and 110. Looks like it might be worse for pupils going between West Twickenham and Orleans Park, or Richmond and Waldegrave, since they’ll lose the H22 which will terminate at Twickenham station. Hope the 490 goes double decker for them. But better news for North Richmond and St Margarets pupils going to RuT School or Twickenham School (and rugby fans from/to Richmond) since that is the new 110 route.

The new 110 route will be bad for Twickenham kids going to the Whitton Turing House site. TH are proposing a pedestrian entrance via the rec so the 110 Powder Mill stop will be heavily used. Also, a shame that there’s no proposal to increase the capacity or frequency of the 481, a crucial route for TH.

I suppose we can't really expect any changes on the 481 until the planning permission has been granted and we know the new site will open in September 2020. It would be a bit early to change it now.

mum It is as you say fairly academic now but the details of the links between Kwok and all the shady Saudi and Malaysian networks emerged in the Panama papers that originated in the Mossack Fonsecca offices in Hong Kong. I thought it was covered here at the time. Since the schools are thriving and they have clearly recruited good educational teams, then the links to these labyrinthian business networks are clearly not an immediate worry, if at all, though staying a bit is probably justified, both specifically and more generally.

Maybe more of a worry is the true agenda and background of the proposers of the Thomas Cromwell School which just got included in the DofE's list of wave 13 free school applications.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-application-information-for-wave-13/wave-13-free-school-applications

On the face of it Richmond is no longer in need of secondary school places having allocated the Stag Brewery site to Aspirations Academy Trust, and another site is highly unlikely to materialise so it has no prospect of success. But who knows with such an opaque process or maybe some other lucky London borough will find themselves with this school promoting Tudor values....