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

Horrid timing with the secondary offers being made at the end of this week, there will be a lot of nervous Y6 parents around.
Comments on teaching chime with what I’ve heard from parents there. Behaviour issues have been apparent locally for some time. Hopefully they can turn things around quickly.

There are council elections in May. Although Teddington School has become an academy, it does not reflect well on Richmond Borough to have one of the most affluent areas (Teddington) having its flagship school Requiring Improvement.
Four years ago under an acting Head, in a state of flux it was awarded a Good rating. Mini inspections prior to 2014 had given it an outstanding rating.Now it has deteriorated significantly with an Executive Head of School, in place for four years, who has failed to deliver on all fronts.
Things have to change at the very top if Teddington School is to recover.

I tend to agree – the comments about governance are concerning. Difficult to see how the council can champion Teddington School to help turn around Hampton and Twickenham when it itself is going in the wrong direction. Wonder if Philippa Nunn saw this coming …

I feel very sorry for Teddington School. We all know Ofsted isn't the be-all and end-all, there are many elements to a school that Ofsted don't even look at. As for other schools, we are delighted with Twickenham School and the transformation there, a far cry from the last Ofsted. Brilliant head teacher, Assal Ruse, amazing staff team comprising of former teachers from Waldegrave, Christ's etc. Fully staffed in all departments, science led by an ex Ofsted inspector. Turned down two other school offers for our youngest son in favour of TS... and no regrets!

Apparently J Wilkinson is on sick leave for some time so whether he steps down or not, who knows. I would recommend not sending your child to TS in the near term - too much disruption and a feeling of headless chickens comes to mind. I feel very sad and quite let down by J Wilkinson and the former Board of Governors,Jen Johnson, who was not very open to feedback and input from anyone. For years I have been complaining about lack of aspiration and monitoring of progress and, lo and behold, these are two of the areas OFSTED have identified. All the governors need to resign asap - they were heavily criticised and now no longer have the trust of the parent body. Feel very sad about the whole thing.

Our primary school sent children home yesterday with a really great newsletter from Hampton High, I was honestly really impressed with what they said, but of course take it with a large pinch of salt, as they wrote it themselves. Our primary sends Y6 all over the place, a large number last year went to Teddington, with Turing and Hampton High also within reasonable catchment distance for many families. Regardless of whether they are as good as they are claiming, their PR is clearly excellent.

Teddington School, given its intake and catchment area should be an outstanding school. Some statistics from the report

• -The proportion of disadvantaged pupils, who are entitled to pupil premium funding, is much lower than the national average.

• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is below average.*

it is not a school that has problems, it has a fantastic, state of the art building and some of the highest performing students in the country (if you look at the end of KS2 Primary results). And in spite of all this..... Something has gone very wrong with management and governance.Not allowing teachers the opportunity to complete Ofsted’s confidential questionnaire suggests that the Chair of Governors and Executive Head knew that staff were aware of significant problems with how the school was being run. I hope there is accountability and those who allowed this to happen are sent on their way and new governors and a new Executive Head is put in place.

Hampton High in its previous incarnations always had a core of community support. It never embraced the swedish experiment with the same evangelism enthusiasm as Twickenham and was complimented by OFSTED at the time for the way in which it had developed more effective ways of implementing the pedagogy, basically by bringing in more traditional approaches. That Head was popular and it was a little that OFSTED basically took her leadership from hero to zero between two OFSTEDs, the latter one coinciding with everyone finally admitting the swedish approach was rubbish. She was an entirely different sort of Head to the wrong headedness that went on at Twickenham. My feeling is that Hampton were already in a better place than Twickenham.

It is within living memory that Greycourt slid into special measures, and leadership, governance and failing the Year 8s and 9s were common factors. I do think Maggie Bailey is exceptional but still it did not take long to improve and it never declined to the point of having vacancies, albeit drawing in pupils from Kingston. I am sure that Teddington will do the same.

If I was a Teddington School parent I think I'd be giving them my feedback in private, not slagging them off online. They've had the kick they need from Ofsted - but RI means Ofsted know they have the capacity to improve with their current leadership structure (they had warm words for the acting head for instance), unlike Inadequate which means they need outside help. In the meantime, if they don't fill the school they'll lose a fortune and that will prevent them from making some of the improvements they need.

From the letter they sent to parents and from the website it looks like they already have new co-Chairs of Governors in place.

I feel sorry for JWilkinson - he took on a big job with Teddington and might have made it work if he hadn't been poached with promises of glory and financial incentive to also solve the bigger issues at the ex-Swedish academies. Question is, if he steps away from that, who will lead the Richmond West Schools Trust? Mrs Nunn has already announced her retirement.

"financial incentive" for the benefit of Teddington school, that is, not for himself.

@graciousgoodness - I think many of us at the school had tried on a number of occasions to give their feedback - but it fell on deaf ears. I'm not sure how I feel about JW. He went on extended sick leave the day after OFSTED left having been given the verdict. There is alot of criticism in the report about leadership and governance and therefore he must take some responsibility for it. Whether it was because he was overstretched or not who can say. I think LBRUT must take alot of responsibility. They put pressure on the school to form a MAT even though many parents had reservations about saddling us with the responsibility of improving two schools when ours wasn't fully up and running. I hope lessons are learnt but in the meantime, we need to turn the school around for the sake of the children within it.

I get that it fell on deaf ears. But now Ofsted have given them a kick. Are you going to keep kicking them while they're down or give them some breathing space to stand up and start making things right again?

For every parent who has challenged the school, I reckon there are 10 who haven't, but are unhappy.
Some have an absolute disbelief or unwillingness to admit, that there could be issues in such a nice looking school, in such a nice area with such nice children! Many parents have challenged the school about issues, and it has fallen on deaf ears. But I think there are a large amount who have have been worried, but not challenged the school, because they have a little voice in their head saying "There are far worse schools elsewhere, it looks the part and I want to believe it is the part and it'll all turn out OK in the end, especially if I pay for tutors."
I also think some teachers felt like this - and thought that the parents who did complain were fussy over-invested Teddington dwellers - something like "these parents are making a fuss, really they have no idea, their kids are privileged and could be at a far worse school etc etc and look how lovely our school looks, and I know they'll pay for tutors in the end"....

I'm not sure if you've visited Twickenham School in the last two years, but with all due respect, if you haven't then you're probably not in the best position to recommend it or not. The headteacher and her staff team are running a very good system with or without Waldegrave and Teddington so the majority of us are not too fazed by them pulling out. Largely the school has been managed without much input from either of those schools anyway and are doing very well. I would politely urge people to visit any school for themselves before advising others. Greycourt turned itself around, I hope Teddington will and I have no doubt that Twickenham is on the way up. Let's try to be positive, people! Teaching is an increasing challenging job and any staff needs our encouragement.

If I'm reading it right, this list of cut-off distances for September 2017 shows that Teddington was only just fully subscribed by the skin of its teeth last September, given that the last place offered was more than 8.5km away www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/430462/response/1048133/attach/html/3/21350%202.csv.txt.html
Everyone's very nervous for tomorrow's offer day results. I know a few people who have put Teddington first, but I don't think the news has filtered through yet.

Sorry not used to mumsnet but this was in response to a posting further up!

mombasagirl I visited Twickenham School and was a bit disappointed by the new head to be honest. I was hoping for an inspiring speech, but it was a bit depressing, although at least she was honest about the long improvement journey ahead. I also went to see the school under the previous head though, and she was dreadful, so I do hope they're on the way up and improve now that its back to being a normal school again.

mombasa I wasn’t putting Twickenham down, just pointing out that the previous Heads left it in a place where it was a huge challenge to bring it back to traditional teaching methods. Both the Teddington and Waldegrave Heads did play a big part in putting together that plan, including substantial investment in getting rid of the grassy knolls and other features of the new building that were part and parcel of the Swedish experiment. That must have distracted from their other roles even if complacency about what was happening in Teddington seems to have been another factor. The current Head is building on all that work.

Seems really unfair that this Ofsted inspection was done AFTER applications to secondary school for 2018 were submitted. I know a lot of parents who put Teddington down as their first choice based on the fact it was still a 'good' school and are now feeling very anxious about their children starting in September. It is our second choice (after Orleans Park - we live in Strawberry Hill) and am now contemplating weeks of anxiety to see if he gets into an 'outstanding' school instead of one that 'requires improvement' - not a nice position to be in if honest

That's the danger of just going by Ofsted reports though isn't it, as they're always out of date. There were plenty people predicting Orleans would be downgraded a few months back, and two of the local options don't even have Ofsted reports yet as they're brand new. Teddington is still the same school it was when people put it as first choice, but now it should get better.

Teddington will be fine. They will get lots of support and advice from Orleans, Waldegrave and Greycourt. The new Head of School has a much firmer grip on how to run a school that the Executive Head ever had.
I just hope that the Executive Head and the Governing Body are held accountable. Some many teachers and parents had expressed concern about student behaviour and the overall running of the school under John Wilkinson.
Teddington School has some of the best students, committed parents and a wonderful site. It will benefit from mentoring by local outstanding schools. It will recover very quickly.

we were impressed when we saw it and my son preferred it to Turing House mainly because he feels ready to be in a 'big' school. I just feel so sorry for these teachers and parents feeling demoralised by Ofsted reports - it was the same for Trafalgar and Stanley - two quite fantastic schools IMO and we wait to see what happened to Archdeacon's Ofsted inspection a few weeks ago.

Spot on mrsmuddlepies. The report does not directly point the finger of blame but, reading between the lines, the implication is very very clear.

There has been another haemorrhaging of staff on his watch, despite the passage of time from the disruption of moving into the new school and subsequent addition of the sixth form.

I understand that rolling up to work in a swanky porsche at a time when budgets were under severe pressure didn't go down too well either.

The final sentence of the Ofsted report is a massive red flag: "The school did not offer staff the opportunity to complete Ofsted’s confidential questionnaire". I have never known that to happen before.

I hope things improve under the new head. Ofsted certainly seem to think that she has what it takes.

The results are out. 3rd choice for us but hopeful of waiting list shift.

Got our letter, offer day stats are..........
Christ’s School, Waiting list, Open places distance 1.380 kms
Grey Court School, Waiting list, distance 3.146 kms
Hampton High School, All preferences met, distance N/A
Orleans Park School, Waiting list, distance 1.530 kms
Richmond Park Academy, Waiting list, distance 2.981 kms
St Richard Reynolds, Waiting list, Randomly allocated within criterion 2
Teddington School, Waiting list, distance 2.660 kms
RTS, Waiting list, distance 3.590 kms
Turing House School, Waiting list, 20% 6(a) distance 1.308 kms, 80% 6(b) distance 2.457 kms
Twickenham Academy, All preferences met, distance N/A
Waldegrave School, Waiting list Area,Area A distance 1.533 kms, Area B distance 5.028 kms