Been offered brand new free school or last choice

[Lazymama2]

We're not sure what to do as have been offered a place at a brand new school which is with walking distance but has not been 'fitted out' yet (buildings are there). There is very little concrete info on term dates, start and finish times, curriculum and obviously no past performance on which to base a decision. Also no older kids to look up to. Other school is our last choice and has improved from satisfactory to good. DH does not want Dd to go to this school and would prefer private. I, on the other hand, quite like idea of a brand new school.

Thoughts/ideas anyone?

PS please dont turn this into a debate of state vs. private as I believe every parent does what is best for thier child/family circumstances and im not for/against one or the other.

@Fox

I note that you say that the Government have committed themselves to a "7 year funding agreement" and so, by implication could not close the school. But actually its just in the news that two Free Schools, one in Durham, the other in Sunderland are being closed by the Secretary of State. I have heard of others in the past. So it does happen, if the Government want to do it.

Anyway here is an announcement that might be of interest:

(I have put it up in time for once!)

Public Exhibition: Whitehall Park School Proposed Development

Wednesday 28th January from 4 – 7 pm

Whitehall Park School and Bellevue Place Education Trust would like to invite you to our Public Exhibition Drop-In Session to learn more about our proposals for the development of Whitehall Park School over the coming months.

The Trust, in conjunction with the Education Funding Agency, following the recent Public Exhibition on the initial concepts, are preparing revised drawings for the proposed development of the new Whitehall Park School. These revised drawings take into account both the views expressed at public consultations and feedback from the Design Review Committee who met in December 2014. We would welcome your views on the revised proposals prior to the submission of our planning application. The proposals are to demolish the former Ashmount Primary School and build a new two forms of entry primary school for up to 420 pupils for ages 4 to 11 on the site.

Images of the revised drawings will be available for you to view electronically via the school website www.whitehallparkschool.co.uk in advance of the exhibition by Monday 26th January 2015.

If you would like to learn more about the Public Exhibition, please do not hesitate to contact us. Please write to: Office, Whitehall Park School, Ashmount Road, London, N19 3BH or email us at: [email protected]

We look forward to welcoming you to Whitehall Park School and hope you are able to drop in at some point between 4pm and 7pm on Wednesday 28th January.

Catching up with the thread so apologies for commenting on something from a while ago. I just read the 'Stay on Green' behaviour policy that WPS uses on their website. Just...... wow.

Techniques described include half-termly Collective reward or lack of, (ie punishment, from the kids POV) on the basis of class merit gained by individual behaviour.

Rooted in a worryingly irresponsible ethos that all of us have a 'choice' how we behave. Oh really? Are they actually serious that they literally red-card the kids dealing with abuse, neglect, family breakdown, bullying or other common family problems, or who have special needs, (all of which background may or may not be apparent to the class teacher) because really, children, it's a level playing field for everyone in this life and if you make the 'wrong choices' at school then that's your look out. Then there's some naive stuff about informing the family of problems.

It's here with links to further detail on a few other pages:
www.whitehallparkschool.co.uk/stay-on-green/

As for the well behaved 'golden Children' sitting up on 'golden thrones' in front of everyone in the 'golden assembly' with their names written in the golden book.. Ludicrous. It would read like a funny spoof if I hadn't felt so sad for the non golden children. I'm not even going to comment here on the bullying policy as I want to have a relaxing Sunday morning.

Well I think your post Local is a reminder that anyone considering any Free School should be very careful to find out what is actually on offer, as the whole point of the Free School idea is that they are not standard but can be idysyncratic (sp?).....

I note that one of the pro Whitehall Park School posters on this site said they were attracted to the school by its behaviour policy....

Agreed nlondon re indiosyncratic. I think I hadn't fully realised before just how far the free school freedom really extended to do things differently according to their own views.

Ummm... I think you may be missing something here. There is nothing particularly radical or even unusual about the 'Stay on Green' behaviour policy as far as I can see.

Indeed if you Google 'Stay on Green' you get page after page of school websites using the same behaviour policy (or variations such as 'Good to be Green', 'Green Expectations', etc. ) including Local Authority run schools in Haringey, Islington, Hackney and Camden.

If you contact Whitehall Park School's headteacher I am sure she will happily explain how the behaviour policy works in practice and if the description on the website makes it seem unusual or radical in some way I'm sure she would value that feedback so they can amend the website to make it clearer.

Hello.

I didn't say Whitehall Park School had invented the principle. Of course schools should expect good behaviour from kids. It's what the school does when the behaviour isn't as expected, that matters.

Their interpretation seems to me to describe a crass system of control of children via reward and punishment. It worries me that in their policy they appear not to acknowledge or talk about what they will actually do to help the kids who can't 'make the right choices' or who find this very diificult.

If you look at other schools' policies who use Green expectations etc they explicitly state that they acknowledge the reality of the kids lives i.e. that they all start from different places. That sounds like the school can recognise and will help deal with problems. Which are often completely beyond the control of the kid or their family.

Instead this is what WPS says:

'Children are encouraged to understand that their behaviour is their own choice and so they can make decisions about how they behave!

We teach children strategies and techniques to help them make the positive choices and to cope and manage their feelings and emotions when things don’t go right, which is when we can all sometimes make the wrong choice.
Through this encouragement and learning together, we can all help each other “Stay on Green” It is always our choice which colour we end up on each day! At Whitehall Park we are all going for GOLD!!!'

There's nothing unclear about this. The head doesn't need to revise anything. It's clearly the 'level playing field' philosophy of the school as this ethos is in all the various links the school website has about its behaviour policy.
I personally disagree with it and I'd rather the school was upfront on its public website about its position as that allows parents to make a choice.

@P'PlannedIt

There was no implication, certainly no intention, on my part to suggest that the government could not close a school. They can, and should be able to close a school with sufficient reason - for example, failing to meet the contractual obligations of their 'funding agreement'.

These schools you refer to (Grindon Hall Christian School & Durham Free school, I assume) between them, either scored inadequate in every single category of the inspection and/or, promoted an unacceptable attitude of religious, cultural & sexual/gender intolerance. If this is an accurate appraisal by the inspectorate, these schools have evidently failed, in an abysmal way, to meet the conditions of their funding agreement. This behaviour has, quite rightly, resulted in having their funding withdrawn (although I think it is only the Durham school that is actually having its funding "terminated"). If I was aware of such behaviour in a school a child of mine was attending, I would not have waited for a government inspection & press brouhaha to guide my decision to remove them from such an environment.

Fortunately, the situation above is not the norm - If a school performs well, and functions as it should & as far as I can tell, based on my own experience and evaluation, this appears to be the case with WPS - it retains its funding agreement.

@Eireannach

I feel that alongside nlondondad's answer to your question you have been presented with a false dilemma.

The 'choices' you have been given, are limited to deciding - who is to blame for an alleged act of "deception". That this deception has actually happened, is almost treated as a given, when this is obviously not the case - as it has been 'established' by some very lean premises.

It's quite a serious claim to say, that either a school, or its charitable trust has deliberately set out to deceive us. I, personally, see little evidence provided for this beyond some conjecture with the surmising of dishonest intentions on the part of WPS/Bellevue.

___

Having included WPS on our school application - I am one on those parents nlondondad refers to, yet I have not felt deceived. I feel disappointed at the delay (& yes the timing was terrible), but this was always present as a possibility.

Pushing a large(ish) building project through planning usually involves the participation of multiple agents & it can be a knotty and complicated business. All manner of issues can arise that may not be evident to those of us outside the brief of that specific project.

In light of this, I believe that it would have been very uncharitable of me to assume, when things do not go according to plan, that there was some deliberate attempt to deceive applicants to the school.

Nor did I feel the need to remove or amend the inclusion of WPS on the school application. Had I wished to, I still had 4 days in which to to do this.
WPS is on our application because I think it looks like a decent school. To my mind, this has more to do with the staff, the pupils they teach and care for & the level of parental involvement. The building is not unimportant, but the school is more than just the building.

But, if anybody is interested in seeing the new designs for the school building, the consultation is today, between 4 & 7pm more info. linked below.

www.whitehallparkschool.co.uk/building-update-5/

@Fox

They gave false assurances. This is deception.

The false assurance was that all was going according to their current plan, when, anyone with any experience of these matters will know, they already knew it was not going to that plan.

Amd its not the first time they have been dishonest.

@nlondondad
How is learning there was a timeline delay and communicating that to parents BEFORE the reception application deadline deception? Were the parents of Ashmount deceived when there was a three month delay in moving to the new building? What solid evidence do you have for this accusation? I think you're stating your opinion as if it were fact.

@fox
Yes, I very much agree with you that this is quite a serious claim to make.

@LocalMummyPerson

It seems like quite a subtle nuance of outlook, that I confess I can't quite grasp, that is upsetting you. All the schools I looked round seemed to say pretty much the same things about behaviour, i.e. they celebrate good behaviour, encourage every child to strive to maintain a good standard of behaviour, they don't tolerate bullying, etc., etc. When I read the behaviour policy on the Whitehall Park School website they seem to be saying the same things.

The idea that the teachers at WPS would make no considerations for an individual child's circumstances or particular needs when encouraging good behaviour seems to do a disservice to the excellent teachers and staff at the school.

You said earlier in the thread that WPS was your closest school, have you had a chance to look round the school to see the behaviour of the children for yourself?

It is BPET policy not to comment on social media. Should any member of the community have a question for any of our schools, we recommend getting in touch directly where the Headteacher or another member of staff will be pleased to assist. Contact details are available on each of our school websites.

NewBrown I have stated clearly (and quoted from the policy!) upthread as to why I don't think its reasonable to base a school's behaviour policy around the idea that all children can, do, or should exercise 'choice' in their behaviour.

This idea places an unfair burden on children in difficult circumstances. Not all of which circumstances will be evident to the class teacher for several reasons. Self-evidently all children don't get the same start in life. Schools need to be able to deal with that constructively.

The presumptions that Whitehall Park School's (essentially, political) philosophy appears to be based on, seems to my mind, to be either
-naive about kids' lives (or reflective of an intention to accept/retain only a very narrow intake of kids?), or
-irresponsible (because this outlook doesn't acknowledge that all kids have different capabilities/needs/difficulties or advantages)
-punitive (because while its obvious that some kids will behave in a way that reflects the problems they are facing- these kids will still be red carded anyway).

HTH.

@localmummyperson
Ok, so you don't like the sound of the behaviour policy as it is worded on the website and that is fine. I don't know if you have visited the school but it seems that all your judgement about the school is being formed by how you are interpreting the website. Why not call or visit the school and see it in action, then at least you can make up your mind based upon what is actually happening rather than speculation about whether teachers can or can't adapt to the individual circumstances of the children they teach.
As your original posts were concerned that you may not be in the catchment for any schools other than whitehall park would it not perhaps be prudent for you to at least give the school a chance to address your concerns?

Hi Junior, thanks. Yes I am particularly looking into WPS as it is our nearest. I will go to see it when we need to start putting names down. I am looking at other schools locally too. I know there is no school that is 100% perfect for any kid but having slowly worked through the websites of most of the ones near us, the policies on WPS really do stick out. If they do make provision for kids that is outside the limits of that policy, which would be right to do - why not say so in the policy?

The problem with feeling I can't get on board with their existing policies is that while individual teachers can have some limited powers to do things differently, these are the policies that the governors and the senior staff have signed off so they do represent the ethos of the school and are always what will be pointed to.

Fox thanks for the detailed post about recent closures of Free Schools. So far as I am concerned this confirms my view that if the political will exists a Free School can be closed even with an Education Funding Agreement in place.

Much the same way that "Building Schools for the Future" was ended by Michael Gove as soon as he took office. In that case it was a Labour policy being reversed by a Conservative.

I think its only common sense to suppose that Whitehall Park School will be vulnerable if there is a change of Government, as it wont even have planning permission for its new building agreed by the election. Unless of course the new Government is a Conservative/UKIP coalition!

Also I see there is a thread about these closures, elsewhere on Mumsnet here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/2286481-Failing-Free-School-closed-by-DfE

@P'PlannedIt

I feel you may have misinterpreted the general tenet of my last post.
Please, allow me to clarify.

The schools you refer to, have exposed themselves to closure because they have evidently failed to meet the conditions of their funding agreement. The removal of funding was not arbitrary.

The "political will" certainly does exist to close any school that has decided to fly itself headlong into the side of a mountain - and this seems to be the course chosen by Grindon Hall Christian School. The irony here being, if you teach creationism, you are going to be subjected to a variant form of natural selection.

By contrast, WPS, seems to be performing as it should be, and therefor meeting the conditions of its funding agreement. In this instance, you may find that same "political will" to be substantially less evident.

As for who will form the next government, who knows? But my understanding is this -

The current government is committed to fulfilling their agreement to WPS, including the provision of a new school building. ?Labour, has also confirmed it will continue to support those schools, like WPS, that are already established.

So I do not readily recognise your supposition of uncertainty & vulnerability, when rather it looks like we are finally moving towards re-establishing some stable and permanent primary school provision for our children.

Pythag will no doubt make their own response but I took it that the point they were making was merely that if there is the political will then a Free School can be closed. I understand that you believe that the political will is not going to be there even if it is a Labour Secretary of State who has to agree to spending millions on a new building. But it rather hinges on what Tristram Hunt meant by an "existing school" when he made that speech in 2013. There certainly will not be an existing building. And his most recent announcement on Free Schools, which was made to parliament is this:-

"Labour is committed to ending the free schools programme and refocusing spending on areas where it is needed most."

3 Sep 2014 : Column 353

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm140903/debtext/140903-0003.htm#140903-0003.htm_spnew30

I asked the Labour Party to clarify and they said they would support 'existing schools and those in the pipeline'. Obviously it isn't impossible that we are wrong but Whitehall Park would seem to be covered by either of those scenarios.

Clearly a reported communication between someone in the Labour Party and JuniorJones is more reliable as an indicator of Labour Party policy than a statement made by the shadow Secretary of State for Education, in Parliament, and recorded in Hansard.....

No probably not nlondondad but I did contact the Labour Party and that is what was put in writing to me. None of us know the outcome of the next election but given the doom mangers on this thread have been pretty inaccurate so far about the fate of Whitehall Park (notably the prediction that the school would fail to attract more than 9 children) I remain comfortably optimistic that the wonderful school my child attends will continue to thrive post May 8th.

So there we are then, the future of Whitehall Park School is secure due to assurances we are told have been given to a parent by the Labour Party.

However it seems to me that JuniorJones and I share a common predicament. What reliance can we put on non binding remarks by politicians what ever interpretation we may put on them? So uncertainty there.

Also huge amounts of uncertainty about the effects of a general election. Uncertainty as to who the government will be, and actually what any particular government would do.

What IS now certain is that the decision whether to give Whitehall Park School, a school which this year was a third empty, a new building at a cost of many millions, will not now be made until the new government is formed. And also certain is that the new Government will be under great financial pressure, including in London from areas where there IS a shortage of school places...

(It may be no coincidence that a selling point used for WPS school last year by Bellevue that it was a school "free of control by socialist Islington" is not one now used by the Head of WPS whose language is rather more conciliatory...)

Yawn.

Is it just me or as NLondonDad's attempts to scaremonger future parents away from Whitehall Park School get more desperate so his arguments (sorry, his opinion-stated-as-fact) get ever more tenuous?

@TheNewBrown
The arguments also contain misinformation. WPS started the year 75% full, as can be verified by a FOI request. I don't know how this got translated into "a third empty".

The published Planned Admission Number (PAN) for Whitehall Park School is 60.

Whitehall Park School (despite, I remind you, having described itself as "overwhelmed with applications" and "hugely oversubscribed") has forty children.

That is why I said it was a third empty.