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

There is also a fairly interesting discussion on Turing site on Whitton Village Facebook, with local councillors involved.

Looking fwd to reading those reports, especially TH as we have a place now, woohoo! Parentview stats look good.

Ofsted really have been busy haven't they. Waldegrave's report is looking a bit out of date now so maybe they'll be next?

The Turing House Ofsted report is out. They got good with outstanding features and the report is a really positive read - well done to them! There's a press release here ... www.turinghouseschool.org.uk/documents/Turing%20House%20Ofsted%20Report%20press%20release.pdf

My son is looking forward to starting in September. The press release also says they'll be starting to consult on the permanent site soon. It'll be good to see that being progressed after all this time.

Great report for Turing, they should be very proud.
Twickenham and Hampton due soon? And when will Waldegrave be done?? Amanda Spielman's speech yesterday acknowledged that parents think there is to long a gap between "outstanding" inspections, it's been 11 years for Waldegrave!

Suspect that will all change when the new rumoured ofsted inspection grades come in - simply ‘achieving’ or ‘not achieving’.

It’s great that Turing was awarded good, because we all want all our local schools to do well. But to any parent whose child has been awarded Teddington, and is concerned about their Ofsted, do not be - Teddington has proven excellent results (top Maths GCSE results in the borough, apart from Waldegrave) and additionally so many positive things are happening at the school at the moment. This is a school that whatever Ofsted says is not RI - most people know that the Tedd report was at best flawed and at worst a sham (I think someone on an earlier thread posted something about the rumoured motivation behind it). But it is what it is, and on a positive it’s given the school a kick up the backside and only good things can result. The school will go from strength to strength and will be number 1 on everyone’s list in a couple of years. So stay calm, hold faith and ignore the doom-mongers. You will find them at every school.

Capella House, a new free school for children with special educational needs and disabilities, will open in Twickenham thanks to Richmond Council . .

It was agreed at the Cabinet meeting last night (7 June 2018) that the Council would lease Amyand House, in Amyand Park Road, for the school’s primary phase year-groups, and part of the Richmond Education and Enterprise Campus, in Egerton Road, for its secondary phase.

Capella House will open in September 2019 with a secondary intake, and, subject to planning permission for internal modifications of Amyand House, will admit its first primary intake in September 2020.

stmargarets.london/archives/2018/06/maaz-school-site-selected.html?

@ChrisSquire my heart sinks when I learn of yet another free school starting up. Has there been proper research about the local needs, is it just a parent hobby horse? How much will this cost to set up ? I hope it goes well but I just wish we went back to LEA control, not a whole bunch of independent schools managing on their own - where's the efficiency in that?

Has there been proper research about the local needs

PKenn, the "proper research" is still the council's job. They publish school place planning strategy documents online every few years, most recently February this year, showing where places are needed.

@bluebellshoebell great on the research but still doesn't address all my other concerns about free schools and academies and who can forget, against much local opposition, the establishment of a faith based school in the borough which now takes students from outside of LBRUT. If you look at the support staff in any academy now it is a waste - better to collect and rationalise those resources in one place and share learning and best practice in a systematic way. But hey ho, we are where we are and I doubt we can go back. How the Tory council handled the schools may provide an explanation as to how badly they performed in the local council elections.

Richmond Borough's done ok out of the free school policy though - by my reckoning it has 6 open free schools and 2 more on the way. So far they all seem to be popular and doing well. It's hard to tell whether a different policy would have had the same or better results, or whether it would have worked out cheaper - I expect they still would have had trouble finding sites for them all.

It seems strange that they are opening another school for secondary school children with special needs in the same location that Clarendon School is already moving to - but perhaps these are different special needs?

@lottieprosser: see page 20 of that report posted by bluebellshoebell.

@bluebellshoes schools in LEA control are more likely to deliver outstanding results than academy led schools (research backed). Also, the development of free schools have been popular with parents and delivered good results but what about the other schools that may have suffered indirectly as a result - less funding, attention from the LA, parental support. I think you can only say free schools and other models are worth the effort if we know for sure other schools don't suffer as a result of their establishment. And I'm not convinced. We have a number of underperforming schools in the borough now... which we didn't have a few years ago. Well and good if you can get your child in to the well performing school but what of the kids in these other schools? No, not convinced.

PKenn -
I suggest you look back over the past threads of this discussion to get a fuller picture of the local education environment. It is absolutely not true to say that the underperforming schools are as a result of Free Schools opening in the borough.
Whitton and Rectory (now Twickenham and Hampton High) were always underperforming schools. They were in such desperate need of help that they were selected for the first wave of the Academy program which was there to supposedly inject cash and energy into failing schools to turn them around. The council at the time choose to give both schools to an untried and untested Sweedish company, Kunskapsskolan. The model failed. Parents saw it failing and saw the 2011 Education Act come in that prevents local councils opening new schools. I'm not defending that Act in any way but I will defend the parents who saw the writing on the wall and decided to do something about it. The schools are now part of a local MAT and are doing better but it will take time for peoples confidence to grow and for them to fill.
Teddington was a "Good" school but its problems have again been evident for local parents to see for a while. The school was spread too thin trying to establish the 6th form, deal with the ubiquitous funding issues, take on running the new MAT and support the failing schools. That's why the recent Ofsted was disappointing, nothing to do with new schools in the area.

It's also worth remembering that all the secondary schools are now academies regardless of their beginnings - so it's can't be true to say that some schools would have less attention from the LA than others. In fact the only school the LA has any direct involvement in is the new RUTS school.
All schools want to be "Good" schools and surrounded by other "Good" schools, it doesn't help anyone in the education system to have a failing school in the area (one of the reasons the whole education "market" is a fallacy). So while I have misgivings about the Free School policy I am also an ardent defender of the new schools we have in the borough - they are very much wanted and very much needed and they have nothing to do with the results of existing schools.

PS I'm not including St RR in that ;)

PKenn, I worked as a teacher in two of our local secondary schools for many years, and I'm still a governor at a school in an adjacent borough. My own children, nephews and nieces have attended several local schools over the years. The one thing I have learned is that schools can only be good when they have a strong and inspiring senior leadership team. Of course they need good teachers too, but they will only be attracted to the school if the senior leadership is good, and they will leave in a heartbeat if that turns sour.

Those good strong leadership teams also need to be supported by good strong advisors and governors. It's the quality and teamwork that matters, not whether they come from the local authority or an academy trust.

In the past, when schools were judged by results only, rather than by pupil progress, there was an inherent disincentive for good teachers to work in schools where pupil backgrounds were more challenging. Thanks to changes in the way schools are measured, it is now possible for all schools to shine - poverty and related factors can no longer be used as an excuse for years of under-performance. Turning around an under-performing school is still very difficult, but no longer impossible. There's a clearer formula - get your leadership team and policies in place, replace poor teachers with good ones, concentrate on making sure all groups of children are making progress from their starting points (the low attainers as well as the high attainers) and gradually win back the confidence of local parents. All of that can be done whether you're an academy or a maintained school - there have always been good local authorities and bad ones, and now there are also good academy trusts and bad ones.

It is simply not true that "schools in LEA control are more likely to deliver outstanding results than academy led schools (research backed)". You are perhaps being selective in the research you are referring to. Do you have a political bias perhaps? The real picture is much more complex - this website sums it up reasonably well: fullfact.org/education/academies-and-maintained-schools-what-do-we-know/

On that note about schools being turned around - congratulations to Twickenham School for their Ofsted Report which shows a school well and truly heading in the right direction: 4905753ff3cea231a868-376d75cd2890937de6f542499f88a819.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/twickenham/uploads/document/Twickenham-School-Ofsted-Report-May-2018.pdf?t=1528912190

This is a school that was failed by successive local authority administrations when they were in control, failed by a labour government who decided to rebuild another school (Teddington) at great expense rather than giving a much needed refurbishment/rebuild to this one, failed again by a Conservative government that would only give rebuild money if failing schools became academies, failed again by the local authority when they made a bad choice of academy trust to run it, left to fail under the poor management of that trust, and eventually saved by another academy trust under the leadership of other local heads. Those local heads have provided a desperately needed support framework, but it is the passion and commitment of the headteacher, and her ability to inspire other teachers to come and join her in helping to turn this school around that has made the real difference.

Wow what amazing, considered and inspiring posts Bluebell and Sailaway. thank you for providing your insights into the very complex education universe. Only reading your posts gives me hope that we can continue to improve and develop the local schools and widen the opportunities for all children - beyond politics.Thank you!

I never thought I'd see the day that a RI Ofsted would earn congratulations, but Twickenham School's one certainly merit that. Though I am sure they would like liked a couple more Goods' that report reads really well.

Well done Ms Ruse and her team!

Here is the latest study on Academy trusts versus Local Authorities which backs up what I said about there being no intrinsic difference in performance :epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/performance-academy-local-authorities-2017/

If a school is in a good academy trust or well run LA it'll do well. If it's not then it won't.

I can understand why past governments wanted to extract schools from the clutches of poorly performing LA'S, and why some schools wanted to run themselves. I can also understand why the free school policy was needed so that there was another way to open schools when LA's weren't doing their jobs properly. But the idea of mass academisation in principle because it was somehow fundamentally "better" was never going to wash. I'm glad our local primaries have resisted it.

Just to point out that the local authority had to rebuild Teddington first for health and safety reasons as it was dangerously overcrowded having twice as many children as it had been built for as well as inadequate old buildings. It did cost a lot more than it was meant to though.

I agree about the local primaries - I hope the threat of mass academisation will go away now the Lib Dems are running LB Richmond.

That may be so LottieProsser, but as you say it was a very expensive rebuild. The Building Schools for the Future programme built flagship schools with a "wow" factor at a time when there were very many schools in need of refurbishment, including some of our neglected local schools which hadn't been fit for purpose for a long time: www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/6395390.not-enough-classrooms-says-leaked-report/

Whitton School didn't stand much of a chance without a big capital investment. Unfortunately it had to wait for the academies programme before it got its rebuild and, unfortunately again, it ended up with a Kunskappskolan-style rebuild, which now needs reconfiguration.

Someone mentioned below that Ofsted was thinking of moving to a pass/fail model, but they've announced this week that they are going to stick with the existing ratings for the time being.

My opinion is that they should get rid of the overall grade and use the four sub-grades, so that schools that are on the cusp of getting a higher grade stand out above those that are mid-grade or lower. As a former SLT member, and current school governor in an adjacent borough, I can read between the lines and see that Twickenham is borderline good, Turing is borderline outstanding, and both schools are well placed with strong leadership to be moving forward in the right direction. The wind is in their sails and they'll probably get there long before their next inspection. I hope parents can see the same - but I suppose many don't look beyond the headline grade.

There is something else to take into account in recent gradings, especially for new schools or schools like Twickenham that have had a significant change of leadership. Now that there is no national assessment framework, schools are all having to measure attainment and progress in their own way - there is no common model any more. That means inspectors are having to be very cautious. Their process is to look at the school's own detailed self-assessment and to triangulate that with what they observe in the classroom and with external results (GCSEs etc). If there are no external results, or if the external results are attributable to the former leadership team, then that the inspectors can't triangulate and are most likely to err on the side of caution.

That’s good to hear about Twickenham School. I noticed that Esher College guarantees places to TS pupils at sixth form and I heard Waldegrave gives them priority too, so that is a good alternative to having their own sixth form.