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.

"supporters of free schools would argue that it is reasonable to create a school in areas where the existing schools are rubbish even if there isn't a shortage of places."

In general, this still raises the question, that with a limited budget should not creation of school places, in areas with a shortage of school places not take priority over the creation of surplus places? ie given that money restricted where is the more important place to spend it?

In the particular case of Whitehall Park School, there is no shortage of places in the area, we know this both from the admissions system figures and also from the way supporters of Whitehall Park School have claimed to have chosen that school in preference to places offered at other schools, and all the local schools are rated Ofsted "good" except for those rated "outstanding"

"Free schools are run by charities'

Indeed they are, by law. But who runs the charity?

In general that varies from Free School to Free School. It depends on who set the charity up, and how they set it up.

In the case of Whitehall Park Free School the charity was set up by Bellevue Ltd and Place Group Ltd, with Bellevue the dominant partner (Place sell services to Bellevue) and they controll the charity as a wholly owned subsidiary. The charity completely accountable to its owners. Bellevue is a (very profitable) limited company owned by shareholders based in Switzerland, to whom it is, of course accountable.

So the charity rund and controlled by Bellevue, and Bellevue controlled by its shareholders, described by Bellevue as a small number of families based in Switzerland.

The money to be raised by selling the site, at a discount, to a Housing Association, and amounting to a bit more than 3 million, was to be used by Islington Council to replenish the capital account for schools which had been partly depleted by the cost of building the new Ashmount School. But of course in order to do this they required permission from the Secretary of Stae, Mr Gove, which, in the event was refused, and he appropriated the land without payment to the council.

@Namillyname

I agree - I don't think nl'dads campaign is borne out of hate, but it is quite evident for all to see that he has an agenda directed towards disqualifying and delegitimising the WPS at every turn. With that in mind however, I undoubtably support his right to challenge and question & if legitimate concerns can be identified by this, all the better. It is unfortunate to say the least that the dialogue so far has often become bogged down in petty & confrontational snippiness.

I likewise share your concerns about the public purse, as I, like you, contribute towards it. But, it is not the site itself that is unfit for purpose but the old school building, this is to be demolished and a brand new building put in its place, the site, located on a green and wooded elevated position over London is beautiful. The perfect location for a primary school.

But you suggest a number of other assumptions about WPS that rather beg the question, and consequently seem unsubstantiated, namely; it has used funds inefficiently, it is unaccountable and it is ill-planned.

Now, as I understand it, WPS is not some autonomous fiefdom but answerable to the Department for Education, as all schools ultimately are, additionally its funding allocation is administered/determined by the Education Development Agency, at least initially, which deals with its primary funding allocation, it also must necessarily maintain a healthy and productive communication with Islington Council. Furthermore, it will be subject to OFSTED inspection and evaluation. All of these elements would, unless I am mistaken, suggest an adequate framework of accountability.

As regards to it being inefficient and ill-planned, unless you somehow know of future outcomes, that really does remain to be seen, doesn't it?

As a parent I empathise with your concerns for your children and how their school might be effected by the creation WPS. May I perhaps, in return, ask you to consider what the effect of no school at all may have on my children?

As I have stated above, now that this school is up and running lets give it a fair chance. It may help (all of us) to keep the criticism/evaluation levelled at a general policy level rather than an actual criticism of the environment that actual 4 year old children inhabit, which, I will never tire of stating, just looks very wrong.

Can we all try and raise the bar a bit?

controlled by its shareholders, described by Bellevue as a small number of families based in Switzerland

This plus your comment that "Bellevue is a (very profitable) limited company owned by shareholders based in Switzerland" looks like deliberate distortion. According to their website Bellevue has significant financial backing from "a small number of British and Swiss families who are passive investors in the group". It is a British company based in London.

You describe them as very profitable. In 2013 they made a profit of £1M but the previous year they made a loss of £0.5M. Without knowing their turnover (not published) it is impossible to tell whether this makes them very profitable or marginal. The directors were unpaid in 2013 having received £30k between them the previous year. It does not appear that there has been any distribution of profits to shareholders.

Bellevue Place Education Trust, as a charity, is not allowed to distribute any surplus to its members and there are restrictions on the trustees and any businesses with which they are associated (which includes both Bellevue and Place) being paid by the charity. That doesn't mean it isn't possible for them to be paid but there are rules which have to be followed, breach of which could result in action against the charity and, in some circumstances, individual trustees. I would accept that enforcement isn't always as good as it should be.

@prh47bridge

if you are going to accuse someone of "deliberate distortion" you need to be very sure that you have your facts straight, otherwise it is yourself you leave open to that charge. Please re read what I wrote, using I suggest, more care this time.

It is very uncharacteristic of you to make a mistake of this kind.

@thenewbrown

If the figures for vacant places at local schools that you quoted, are, as you now seem to say, irrelevant, why did you quote them in the first place? Am I missing something?

I am concerned at the language being used in this thread,nlondondad has been accused of pursuing a "campaign of hate" when on reading the thread what he is doing is opposing WPS, and I agree with Foxmonaught that the questions he is asking should be asked. Now he is being accused of being deliberately deceptive by describing WPS as being ultimately run by people with a connection to Switzerland. Well I have had a look at the Bellevue website, and they are very open, even proud of their Swiss connections.
A lot of their business, by their account is in Switzerland. They also describe themselves as running WPS with no mention of a charity.

Here is the link. Interested to hear what others have to say.

www.blvue.com/

@PythagorousPlannedIt

Yes, it does seem that you have missed my reasons for posting those figures. Foxmonaught explained the reasons to you, much more eloquently that I ever could, in his/her post on this thread on 27th September.

nlondondad

I read what you wrote. To quote:

controlled by its shareholders, described by Bellevue as a small number of families based in Switzerland

You have obviously visited their website which talks about "a small number of British and Swiss families". Why omit the mention of British families? That looks like a deliberate distortion.

PythagorousPlannedIt

A lot of their business, by their account is in Switzerland

You must be looking at a different website from the one I can see at that address. The site shows that they have two schools in Switzerland and 17 in the UK. According to their website they did not start operating in Switzerland until 2012 but they have been operating in the UK since they were established in 2003.

They also describe themselves as running WPS with no mention of a charity.

Did you not spot the words "Operated by Bellevue Place Education Trust" on the WPS page? The Trust is the charity. You may not be aware that any free school must, by law, be operated by a charity.

@P'PlannedIt

Just a wee qualifier - I championed the asking of questions in general, I made no specific endorsements of nl'dad's particular questions, neither in their relevance or their validity; only the hope that some relevance might come out of them.

I have a couple of questions:

New Brown - but I thought that continued public funding for any school would depend on there being enough children attending that school? And so even if 7 years public money is promised won't that be dependent on the school attracting enough children?

(And if enough children do attend- what happens after the 7 years?)

surely the future is less secure for Whitehall Park school in particular, more so than other local schools, as this school has the combination of being an unknown quantity AND of being still undersubscribed after the start of term.

I agree that it seems that various known-quantity (rated good or excellent by OFSTED) local schools are also undersubscribed, to a greater or lesser degree- but don't these have (some) security in having a track record and local reputation? Unless their OFSTED ratings suddenly take a tumble that is?

foxmon your mention of the building of the new school 'put in the place' of the old one, sounded a bit like it would be built on the footprint of the old one.
That sounds good but does that mean that something has changed?

I had thought that this was not going to be a like-for-like rebuild? I had understood that, the old school is being demolished and replaced by flats and presumably their parking spaces etc.

Then in what's left of the old school's playground, (next to the housing development) will be built both a new school and its playground.

Or have I gotten confused along the way in this thread? (Quite possible!)

Thanks for anyone who responded to my queries.

It's all very confusing, in part as a reflection of a mismanaged process with a certain degree of obfuscation on the part of the DofE, but I do think the best way to clear up any confusion is for people (NLondonDad included) to keep asking questions. If there's no issues with this project, then there should be nothing to hide.

I think these questions are absolutely in the best interests of parents/prospective parents with children at Whitehall Park Primary.

Ok - well, I'd look at the Ofsted and work out why it is now a good school. Some friends of mine rejected a school rated as good - because the thing it was really good at was getting children with no a very poor start up to an acceptable standard - but the Ofsted noted it didn't have much to offer able pupils.

As far as the free school goes - you do have the option of taking it and a) staying on continued interest got other schools b) taking a view about progress and possibly going private from Year 1 if it's not working for you.

@L'MummyPerson

The plan as I understand it is 49/51% split between WPS and LBI respectively, see more details here:

www.whpara.org.uk/wps.html#!

Looking at the site currently, it seems that they are going to demolish the existing Ashmount building and then build the new school AND playground on the old footprint. This will then free up the lower part of the site for LBI to build housing, (this last bit is speculation on my part, but it would make sense to proceed that way). The first part detailing the split however, is confirmed. It's a compromise, where there is both a school and housing.

With regards to your earlier comment about the lack of information. I agree this was frustratingly true in the past while negotiations we ongoing. I think they are now trying really hard to address this, there is a lot more content available online and the Headteacher, Laura Birkett sends out a weekly'ish newsletter with general info & updates (including how the build/planning is progressing). Have a look under 'Contact' on their website. I hope this helps.

but I thought that continued public funding for any school would depend on there being enough children attending that school? And so even if 7 years public money is promised won't that be dependent on the school attracting enough children?

Sort of.

It is not true that 7 years public money has been promised. The standard funding agreement allows the Secretary of State to terminate the agreement without reason on 7 years notice. In some circumstances the agreement can be terminated far more rapidly than that.

The amount of funding any school receives is directly dependent on the number of pupils it has on the roll. There is no set number of pupils below which a school stops receiving funding. But clearly if the number on roll is too low it is no longer possible to operate as the funding won't be enough to cover the outgoings.

@namilyname
I guess the issue is that the questions are not being asked from an neutral stand point but largely by someone who has publicly opposed the project from day one. Doesn't mean the questions shouldn't be asked, just that it doesn't feel very much like the interests of parents and children who are at the school or may go to the school in the future are really at the heart of the questioning.

Meanwhile on a positive note away from the mumsnet minefield my happy four year old continues to thrive and love his time at Whitehall Park.

You guys have clocked the OP doesn't actually live in Islington?

@longtalljosie

I think most of the recent participants in this thread have clocked this.

I agree it seems a bit hard on the OP, but what happened was that this thread having opened, a small number of highly partisan supporters of the Whitehall Park School in Islington weighed in - the connection being that it is a Free School - and away it went. Interestingly what this small group have in common is that not only are they partisan supporters of WPS but a search on their usernames shows they only post on threads relating to Whitehall Park School.

On the otherhand the thread has attracted a number of posters with a more general involvement and interest in issues surrounding Free Schools, so although the focus a bit narrow, some worthwhile points have been made of more general interest.

Hmmm - well, all I see is a bunch of people continuing an ongoing argument and not being much help to the OP at all - who wanted advice pertaining to her own situation, not the ins and outs of educational policy in North London...

@Longtalljosie

I was pretty much thinking along those same lines, and before I posted I deliberated if I should add to the whole NorthLondoncentric conflagration, as the whole thread has been totally hijacked. But this is all too common these days, I blame the internet.

Regarding the OP, though - they must have made their decision by now, and they struck me as wishing to remain candid about revealing what school & where etc. so unless they decide to pipe up now, I guess we will never know. I hope they made a decision they were happy with, and one that was right for their child.

@nlondondad

I am not sure many would agree with your précis of the early thread - far from "partisan supporters" of WPS weighing in, after the OP - you are the second poster on this thread, soon thereafter a spat ensues between these "partisans" of WPS and yourself, by your own reckoning, does this make you a partisan opponent of WPS?

Also, do you really think it fair to denigrate parents and carers with the term 'partisan' simply for being supporters of their children's education?
You seem very thin skinned when it comes to comments you deem "personal" directed at you, yet you choose not to extend this consideration to others.

Some of us here are trying to make a balanced, rational and informed decision about where to send our children to school next year, in the past I have found your contribution quite helpful, less so these days i'm afraid, which is a shame.

@All

I think in fairness to the OP and perhaps just to clear the ground a little, we should consider creating a new WPS specific thread.

Yes, I agree I am an opponent of WPS school. And I do not agree that the supporters of WPS are "simply supporters of their childrens education" as if by contrast other people such as "namelyname" are not....

The decision to establish a school, using public money, which has the potential to benefit one small group at the quite literal - the figure is at least 3 million pounds -expense of other children in Islington is bound to be controversial. I make no apology for being "partisan" in support of the children of Islington who will suffer disadvantage because WPS has been created.

But further, and almost more importantly I have become more and more concerned at how much the WPS project is characterised by "spin" and PR - they employ a PR agency(!) and I believe there are serious questions that need to be asked relating to this school, and the facilities children at it will actually enjoy. Promises are being made which I do not see possible of fulfillment, and further there is already a growing record, as time passes of over promising.

Hello all,

OP here and i have just been alerted by nlondondad to the fact that people are curious as to what We decided in the end.

We accepted the place at Braywick Court (part of the Bellevue consortium of schools). There will be 4 teachers (head, class teacher and part time specialist maths and english teachers) at this school, which we thought was fantastic so happy to send dd there despite other schortcomings which we were confident would be resolved in time.

Then we were offered a place at the local outstanding primary. After mulling it over we went for the established, proven school for those reasons. Dd was very happy and settled from day 1 so we fell like we made the right decision

One thing I have noticed from reading this thread a few months ago is that how much more passionate London parents seem to be than the ones locally to me. I recal that only one person local to me ever inputted to the thread!

Thank you for the update OP and really glad that everything worked out well for your DD.
As you can see your situation as outlined in your OP is broadly shared by a fair few of us.

We are carrying on this thread as parents/ potential parents and interested local people with new free schools starting up (or all/none of the above) and I for one really appreciate you starting this thread. As a place to ask questions and share what we know. There are many schools this thread is relevant to and I think sharing knowledge is generally helpful so I'd be happy to stay on here rather than start a new WPS specific thread. Though everyone is free to do what they want obvs!

I was also looking out for the ofsted inspection report for Rutherford House School as I thought this would be in line with Braywick would get in the future. However, when I last checked, I think beginning of Sept, there was still no Ofsted.

I think this will useful insight for parents as to how Bellvue operate thier schools.