Whitehall Park School - Hornsey Lane - Applications for Entry 2014.

[whitehallparkdad]

The new free school is accepting admissions for the 2014.

It is probably worthwhile know for parents particularly in crouch end highgate and archway area as it is offering an additional place OVER AND ABOVE the general local authority application for primary schools (i.e. over and above the number 6 we currently putting on the islington form)

This is an FYI which I thought would be of interest to parents in the community currently fretting about lack (or not) of primary school places.

Please note that the poster is well aware of the debate about whether there is a lack of places or not so I don't really see the need to go over that old ground once again.

You can apply online via their website:

www.whitehallparkschool.co.uk/apply/

met the new Whitehall Park School headmistress yesterday at their open evening....very impressive and makes it all feel real.

Juniorjones

We must have attended the same meeting. For me it was the confirmation of the site which makes it feel a little more tangible.

I have attended several of these meetings and think the whole team is quite impressive - they seems to have withstood a fair amount negativity and whilst i am sure they are not completely unscathed seem to be very positive about the whole thing - that must be no small feat in itself!!

I went to the coffee drop in this morning, and they were careful to say that the site had NOT been confirmed. They explained that "negotiations" were continuing between the DfE (or was it the EFA? ) and Islington regarding the site.

While that has actually been the formal position for months now, what I thought was an interesting development was their suggestion that it was possible that they might only get part of the site, and that the Education Funding Agency were moving in the direction of demolishing the old building and doing a rebuild

Anyone interested in the future of this school, if indeed it HAS a future should have a look at this posting on the Local Schools Network site:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2014/03/when-is-a-more-than-half-empty-school-an-oversubscribed-school-when-it-is-the-whitehall-park-school-islington-this-autumn/

On 6 February the Islington Gazette reported:

A DfE spokesperson said: “Whitehall Park Free School is being set up in response to significant local demand – and the school’s reception year is oversubscribed for September 2014.

“Free schools, such as Whitehall Park, are popular with parents – they provide more choice and freedom and ensure children have access to the high quality education they deserve.”

On the 24 February a long article appeared in the Evening Standard. (It is worth reading in full.)

www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/the-middleclass-parents-dream-school-and-a-battle-for-an-asbestosriddled-site-9149092.html

In it Alison Roberts wrote:

“Tom Legge, lead sponsor of Whitehall Park…… says that it (the school) has had “many more applications than we have places available” for next September’s first cohort of two forms, although he won’t give precise numbers.”

Earlier, before the closing date for applications, a spokesman for the new school at a public meeting, referred to “overwhelming demand” and applications “flooding in” to “a surprising extent”.

However, both Bellevue and the DfE preferred, it seemed, not to say how MANY applications there had been.

The “flood of applications”, “overwhelming demand”,“many more applications than we have places available”, “oversubscription” and “through the roof” amounted to….

Seventy two applications for fifty six places.
(Source: Freedom of information enquiry to DfE)

Lower than the applications received last year by 40 out of 45 Islington Schools, and the five with fewer applications than Whitehall Park all had vacant places – and for smaller planned intakes.

The statements by Bellevue and the DfE are misleading. In fact the viability of this project for lack of demand is now in question.

An interesting example of a Secondary Free School, due to open this Autumn on a temporary site, which the DfE has decided will NOT now open. The announcement was made on 12 March 2014, that is, nine days after offers of secondary school places were made including, of course, places at that school.

www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/11076083.Parents_devastated_as_Turing_House_School_opening_pushed_back_a_year/

It seems the reason given was that a "a permanent building" was not available. However according to the Press Story:

"Parents were assured the school would open in temporary accommodation in September before a permanent site was secured, but the reverse has left 150 children without a guaranteed school place"

However although the parents have been left only five days to find another school, there appears to be confidence that this will be possible for them without great difficulty. This makes me speculate that the true reason for the late announcement is that the application figures in the Borough indicated that there would be a significant surplus of secondary school places in that area if the Free School went ahead, So thats why it got pulled.

Do you think that's true about the real reason? What significance do you think this has for Whitehall Park, which isn't even close to PAN as Turing House was.

Free schools are in free fall aren't they? How would a parent ever trust their child to one not yet opened now? How can they have any faith?

I find the whole process of agreeing applications for free schooly astonishing. I simply cannot understand how they are allowed in areas where there is no demonstrable demand, yet we regularly hear stories of extremely expensive schools opening up with 30 or fewer children turning up in year groups meant to admit 120. I equally cannot understand how any school is ever given the go-ahead when they cannot demonstrate that they have a viable site. Put with that the fact that free schools don't have to employ qualified teachers and that prospective parents don't get to meet the teachers because none are recruited until the opening is imminent, and I feel you would have to be mad to put your child down for one.

And don't get me started on the disasters that were Al Medinah, IES Breckland, the King's Science Academy and many, many others. Or all the evidence that is coming out about the highly cavalier attitude free schools and academies display towards their obligations to children with SEN who might muck up their league table positions, the manipulation of admissions and the use of illegal exclusions. The truth is that the entire academy/free school initiative is based primarily on political expediency, and far too many children are already being harmed by it.

@playfortoday

you wrote:

"do you think that is the real reason' by which you meant my theory that while Lord Nash said that the school could not open as he did not want it to use temporary accomodation, as permanent provision not yet available, the real reason was it had not recruited enough children....

Well, what made me suspicious is that first there are plenty of examples of Free Schools starting off with temporary accomodation.

(Whitehall Park, if it goes ahead, certainly will. This has been confirmed by Bellevue Ltd in their newsletter of the 12 March entitled "site update")

Then second, I noticed that there seemed to be no difficulty at all in finding places for all the disappointed pupils. This made me think that there could not have been that many of them, and obviously there was plenty of space in local schools to take them.

So yes I think the basic reason was a combination of not enough children and too many vacancies in other schools... According to a poster on the Local Schools Network the nearest schools were two academies which did not fill last year and an "outstanding" girls school....

Hello, yes I meant, do you think the lack of demonstrable need for the additional places was the cause of pulling it? Which you've answered.

Though it's quite different from Whitehall in that there seems as if there was a reasonably large cohort which did want to go there.

It would be interesting to see what happens in a situation where there's no site, very few parents wishing for their children to go there and when there's sufficient capacity in surrounding schools. Surely they'd have to be quite bullish to go ahead.

@nenny pops

Well I think it has been pretty well established that the whole process of setting up Free Schools lacks transparency. If you look at the "New Schools Network" site you will see that they advise anyone seeking to set up a Free School that their application should show:

"No significant surplus of school places in the relevant phase in the area;"

OR

"That the number of places in weak existing schools (which Ofsted judge to be ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’) in the school’s proposed vicinity comprises a total number of pupil places greater than your proposed school’s capacity ..."

One could suggest this might have been more clearly phrased as obviously the number of places would be greater than the number of pupils, if there were vacant places but later on they write and clarify this:

"The DfE have stated that your application will score more highly if there are more pupils at weak schools (judged as ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted) in the area than the capacity of your proposed school."

So there you are. The application should show that there is no surplus OR if there is, that there enough children in poorly performing schools that if the Free School was better, it could attract custom - at the expense of course of the "poor schools" -It would be a market driven thing.

BUT the DfE refuse to allow anyone to see the applications. So it is impossible to judge such claims.

In the Whitehall Park case we know there is a surplus of school places in the area, there were vacancies in local schools last year, and all the schools are rated by Ofsted as "Good" except for one, rated as "outstanding" So how did the application get past this hurdle? As we are not allowed to see the application we have no way of knowing.

Delighted to heat that the new school at hornsey lane now has a signed EFA. Good news for all those parents who have not been offered places by Islington.

How is Bellevue Education going to profit from this exercise?

No idea. All I know that having decide to send him there my son is there, making friends and enjoying it.