New Secondaries for Richmond Borough?

[BayJay]

Richmond Council recently published a White Paper outlining plans for Secondary education in the borough (cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=23719). They want new 6th forms in every school, and would need to decrease current Yr7 intakes to accomodate that. To offset those decreases they are talking about creating two new secondary schools. One of those new schools would be a Roman Catholic school.

The Roman Catholic community in the borough are currently disadvantaged by the "link" system (www.st-marys.richmond.sch.uk/Newsletter%20Link%20letter%20for%202011%20links%20(2).pdf). Because the Catholic primaries are not linked to any secondaries in the borough, their children tend to go to a combination of out-of-borough Catholic secondaries (which are mostly rated as Outstanding), grammar schools and private schools, though some of the girls do go to Waldegrave, which is not part of the link system. Note that there is no reason, in principle, why the Catholic Secondaries couldn't be linked to local community schools, but because many of their children have other options, they simply don't meet the "25% rule" required to form a link. (See an example set of transfer figures at www.st-james.richmond.sch.uk/Admin/Uploads/Docs/StJamesSchool_Parents_NewsLetter_270910.pdf).

This raises several questions in my mind:

1. Does the problem necessarily need to be solved by providing a Catholic Secondary, or are there alternative solutions that would benefit the community as a whole (e.g. reforming the link system)?
2. Does the majority of the Catholic community specifically want to be educated separately from the rest of us, or is it the case that, like everyone else, they simply want an outstanding education for their children, and find that the Catholic route is often the best way of achieving that?
3. If Catholics had more options for transferring to outstanding community schools locally (as many already do, to Waldegrave), would they choose those options over travelling to a single-faith school in a neighbouring borough?
4. I accept that there will always be very religious people who want to segregate themselves, but would I be right in asserting that there are also large numbers of Catholics who would be happy to attend community schools, provided that gave them the same level of academic excellence that can be found in many Catholic options?
5. If a new Catholic secondary school is created, it is likely to have an entrance policy that requires a priest's reference (as per the majority of existing Catholic schools). How do people feel about that?
6. If a state-funded Catholic School is created in the borough, would non-Catholic parents also like the option of sending their children there, provided they weren't barred by the admission system?

I'd be interested to hear your opinions!

No prob . Don't forget to read the other thread in Mumsnet Local too. The two threads cover some of the same ground, but they've both gone through phases of being quite active, with some different voices in each.

An interesting debate; when are the issues expected to be settled? I think of Richmond as an easy-going place with never a whimper of discourtesy or lack of harmony. A model district of the capital.

Its been a fairly courteous debate actually. There's been the occasional rant on both sides, but generally people have stayed calm and stuck to the facts.

The Catholic Church will need to obtain Michael Gove's special permission to set up a Voluntary Aided school without any sort of competition. The fact that there is local opposition will no doubt influence his decision on that. If he waves it through, then there will still have to be a consultation process (though many people think the consultation should happen before that stage). If he refuses permission, then the council will have the choice of either having an open competition for the site, or working with the Catholic Church to set up a Faith Academy. Academies are exempt from competition, but the leadership of the Catholic Church may not be keen to go down the academy route because of the rules that say new faith academies can only select 50% of their pupils by faith. They may decide to walk away from the opportunity, rather than set a national precedent on admissions. That's why I think its important for Catholic parents to make their views on a potentially inclusive Catholic school clear, both to the council and to their own leadership.

Another thing to bear in mind is that there is an Education Bill going through parliament at the moment. I haven't quite got my head around what bearing that will have on the debate. Thoughts welcome.

BayJay, I wonder if you would mind giving a brief summary of the background and issues on this thread please? I have a Y5 DC in a local (but not LBRuT) RC primary and have been looking at RC secondary options. Anecdotally, there are LBRuT children who travel to our local RC secondary, and I'm curious as to how this proposal might affect that school's intake.
Thank you

Another question from me, BayJay or anyone else who knows - and apologies if its a very basic one (have googled and can't find answer). What percentage of the costs, if this does turn out to be a RC school, are paid for by the Church as opposed to the State?

I had lunch with a RC friend, who said her view was that the percentage of RC places at the school should reflect the percentage of costs paid for by the Church - but she had no idea what that might be. We're both curious!

ChippyMinton, hello, I just wrote a long reply, but lost it when Mumsnet logged me out (grrr), so give me a little while and I'll get back to you.

Elibean, there are different types of faith school. The council is proposing a Voluntary Aided (VA) school. In VA schools the church pays 10% of the capital (building) costs. The council pays the other 90% of the capital costs, and 100% of the running costs. In return the church gets full control over admissions. In contrast to CofE schools, which often provide a percentage of places that are open to the community, Catholic VA schools always prioritise entry to Catholics (unless they are undersubscribed, in which case their surplus places may be filled by non-Catholics, but that is different to the concept of providing open places as a priority).

If the new Catholic school is an Academy then it will have a different funding model that would be agreed between the church and the local Authority. It will be less cost-effective for the council, but the trade-off would be that the Catholic church would need to provide at least 50% open places. That would arguably satisfy many (but not all) supporters of the RISC campaign.

ChippyMinton, here goes .....

1. The Catholic community in LBRUT would like an in-borough Catholic Secondary school, and have been lobbying the council for many years. They recently submitted a petition to LBRUT council, which triggered a mini-debate in which there was cross-party support for the "principle" of a Catholic school. However, no commitment was made on timing or priority.

1. Currently children from LBRUT Catholic primaries transfer to a mixture of out-of-borough Catholic secondaries, private schools (mostly non-Catholic), and in-borough Community schools.

1. Anecdotally they are finding it increasingly difficult to get places at the out-of-borough Catholic secondaries. (Although the Archdiocese of Westminster claims on its websie to have enough Secondary School places for every Catholic child).

1. Until recently there was no site available for any new secondary schools, but LBRUT council have now purchased a site in Clifden Road (central Twickenham) that is large enough for a Secondary and Primary school, and already has a viable school building on it (though it will need refurbishment),

1. LBRUT council have given the Catholic Church first refusal of the site for the creation of a Voluntary Aided Catholic Secondary School (I'm not sure if they are also being offered the Primary school).

1. The Richmond Inclusive School Campaign (RISC) has been set up by local people (backed by the Accord Coalition) to campaign for all future new borough schools to have open admissions. They have said that they would not oppose a Catholic School that had an open admission policy, fair employment policies, and an OFSTED inspected curriculum.

7.The campaign is gathering a lot of support because school admissions are a big issue locally, with lots of pressure on the admissions of popular community schools. Primary schools are expanding and the potential future introduction of 6th forms will lead to even more pressure for space.

8.Apart from Waldegrave (girls only), there are 3 popular LBRUT Secondaries: Orleans Park, Teddington & Grey Court. They each operate admissions under LBRUT's Linked School Policy.

1. The Linked School Policy was introduced in 1992 to try and counteract the effects of the Greenwich Judgement which prevents Local Authorities from prioritising admissions to in-borough children. The Linked School Policy has been controversial for many years, and the LBRUT Admissions Forum recently recommended that a consultation should be held on its removal.

10. The Linked School policy currently prevents many children from Catholic primaries from transferring to the more popular community secondaries. That is one argument for them wanting a Catholic Secondary, but that argument will no longer be relevant if the Linked School policy is stopped or reformed.

11. There are also 3 under-subscribed Academies in LBRUT, all close to borough boundaries. The council is putting a lot of effort into helping them improve, and progress is being made. The Government is unlikely to give LBRUT any money for new secondary schools while those Academies are undersubscribed. (That is one reason why the Richmond Free School bid failed).

12. There are currently two related petitions available for signing on the LBRUT website. The first is from RISC, arguing for inclusive admissions. It was briefly debated last month, and is still gathering support. The other is in support of the Catholic school, and is a copy of their original petition (see point 1), but presumably by re-creating it as an epetition they are aiming to reach a wider audience. That one will be debated (again) in November.

13. The council debates are leading to a lot of publicity, which may affect the outcome, but none of them affect the process. They don't result in a vote or a decision. The current status of the process is as described in my last post but one [BayJay Tue 04-Oct-11 16:53:29].

I think that's everything. Let me know if something isn't clear.

Excellent summary, many thanks BayJay. Have been following this story with interest.

One query I have is about the last RC secondary in Richmond. Wasn't Christ's for some time a joint Catholic/CE school but then the Catholic church pulled out and it got reborn as a Church of England school? Someone on this thread also mentioned St Edwards but maybe that was the same school.

muminlondon, yes you're right, Christs did used to be a joint CofE/Catholic school, after merging with a Catholic school called St Edward the Confessor. The Catholic church pulled out of that in 1997. However, that was a long time ago and isn't generally considered relevant to the current debate.

Note, however, that Christs entrance policy does give priority status to Catholics (after CofE) in its criteria for its 70 Foundation places. They also provide 50 Open places.

It's worth adding to point 12 in my summary post above [BayJay Tue 04-Oct-11 21:30:01] that ahead of the second council debate, the Lib Dems clarified their position. They now say that while they support a Catholic school in principle, pressure on school place means that the Clifden Rd site should be prioritised for a community school.

However, at that debate, none of the councillors, on either side, addressed the main point of the RISC petition, which was related to inclusive admissions.

Thank you so much, BayJay - really helpful, and can relate info to other local parents now

Given the funding facts, I am clear that I am totally opposed to a VA school then. Academy, less so.

Thanks again!

Hi, interesting read! ... I wondered though if 'In VA schools the church pays 10% of the capital (building) costs [and] the council pays the other 90% of the capital costs, and 100% of the running costs' then what percentage of the total (capital and operating) costs does the church pay? Sorry I couldn't work the maths out.

Well that depends on how much building work and maintenance is required. In this case there's already a viable school building. Some conversion will be needed but it won't be as expensive as a new build. I think I have some numbers somewhere that can give a national overview for the financial contribution made by the Catholic church to its schools so I'll dig them out later if I can. (I'm at DC2's swimming lesson at the mo).

Bear in mind also how the church raises that money. Much of it comes from parents at the schools who contribute to a central fund for maintaining the schools and churches. My own children go to a CofE VA school that works the same way. Parents pay approximately #65 per child per year to the "Diocesan Maintenance Fund". A proportion of funds from church collections go into the same pot. The funds then act as a central pot for maintaing churches and making the 10% contribution to school maintenance. Some schools may sometimes get back more than they put in, but essentially it all averages out. Contrast that with community schools which often have their own contribution schemes (in addition to the PTA). In prosperous areas those schemes raise an equivalent amount of money for their schools (the disadvantage being that the money is not shared with schools in less prosperous areas).

Thank you very much for the summary BayJay. I will take some time to read and digest all the links.

Tahdah, you wanted to know what percentage of total (capital + running) costs the Catholic church contributes to its schools. Looking at the numbers, the answer seems to be somewhere between 0.5% and 0.7% depending on which of the following two methods you use to estimate it:

1. Department for Education numbers indicate that capital costs for schools for the next four years will be about 7% of total costs. Given that a VA school has to contribute 10% of these costs this works out to 0.7% of total costs.

1. The Catholic Education Service claim to put £20 million into their schools nationally. They have 784,808 pupils, so that works out as £25.48 per pupil. In contrast, LBRUT contribute £4,814 per secondary school pupil. So the Catholic contribution is 0.5% of the total funding per pupil.

Of course, since some of that money is recovered from parental contributions (as described in my previous post) the true amount could arguably be closer to zero.

I didn't really think or care about faith schools much as they're often small so don't represent a lot of capacity, and I assumed the church put in a lot of the funds. But the idea of my taxes funding a school my child couldn't access in a time of recession seems unfair and a terrible waste of money. I'd rather the money went on special needs provision or the bringing up standards in the most deprived areas. I don't understand the business case here!

To be fair to the Church, they do own most of the land that Church schools are built on, and historically they were set up with the good intention of providing education to the poor. However, its a very different world now, and faith-based admission systems are very much a modern concept, that are proving divisive in areas like ours where there is so much competition for space.

In the case of Clifden Road, the council has bought the site. We don't yet know the details of the deal it is proposing to the Catholic Church, i.e. whether the church will pay 10% of the land purchase costs as well as 10% of the capital costs required to convert the buildings. The advantage to the council is that it gets a 10% discount on the cost of creating a new school, and can more-or-less guarantee that with the church in control it will be high-performing. I presume, though don't know for sure, that they are happy to let it be exclusive to Catholics, because any other admissions model would impact on Twickenham Academy, which they are trying to turn around. Of course, Twickenham Academy should ideally be able to stand on its own merits. There's some discussion about that in the other thread.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has been campaigning about Faith Schools for many years, and would like to see them abolished completely. That goes too far for some people. However, the Accord Coalition, of which the BHA is also a founding member, along with teaching unions and some religious and political groups, have more moderate (and, in my view, pragmatic) aims. They are campaigning for all faith schools to have open admissions, fair employment policies, and an OFSTED inspected curriculum. They have tabled some amendments to the Education Act that is currently going through the House of Lords, so it will be interesting to see what happens there. Both organisations appeal for funds via their websites to help them with their campaigns, so anyone who feels strongly about this issue may be interested in contributing.

For info, it is the Accord Coalition that is endorsing the local Inclusive Schools Campaign.

Update: the church has made a formal application to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, for consent to "publish proposals" for a Voluntary Aided school on the Clifden Road site. This is required to avoid the Council having to hold a competition for the new school, or having to set it up as an Academy (which would have a maximum 50 % faith-based admissions). His decision is a closed process and we don't know what's happening. See: twickenhamlibdems.co.uk/en/article/2011/512963/the-new-school-for-twickenham-what-happens-next for more detail.

Gove will not respond to letters from the public but he will to a letter from an MP on their behalf. So if you object to the church?s application and live in the Twickenham constituency, please write to Vince Cable [[email protected] or by letter to: 2a Lion Road,Twickenham TW1 4JQ] copying [email protected] . A letter is better, if you can make the time to write it.

So Bajyay ... taking the idea that the percentage of places at the school should reflect the percentage of costs paid for by the Church then 0.5% or 0.7% or whatever implies ... er just doing my mental maths ... 1 (?) child per yearly intake? Is that right?

Tahdah, that depends on the size of the school. If it has 2 forms of entry (with 30 in each class) then that works out at 0.4 of one child. If it is 3-form entry then 0.6 of one child. Rather than trying to chop up our children, perhaps fully open admissions would be a better idea.

Of course, if you subscribe to the notion that a significant proportion of the people contributing to church collections would not be there if they weren't trying to gain a school place (and who can blame them when there is so much competition for a places in schools), then it could be argued that it is the schools that are supporting the churches rather than the other way round.

The Church of England are moving towards completely open admissions in their schools. The Catholic church is so far not inclined to do the same.

There are lots of letters about the Catholic school issue in this week's Richmond and Twickenham Times. See pages 28 -31.

For info, on page 31 there is a question from a reader wanting to know the names of the 8 Catholic Secondary schools within 5 miles of the centre of Richmond Borough. If you're interested in the answer to that, here is a link to the map produced by the Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign.

The same letter also questions the 10% figure that RISC has been quoting for the percentage of Catholics in the borough. This document contains their explanation for that number.

Just a note about factual information: assuming that circle shows the 5 mile radius, that map misses out at least one RC secondary school - St Pauls, Sunbury. Cardinal Wiseman is only just beyond, too.

A further note on that RTT letter on pg 31. It complains about a partial quote from the Westminster Diocese, which said it had enough secondary schools to accomodate all Catholic children. The explanatory note that he refers to has recently been added to this page. However, the original statement that was quoted remains in the Secondary School Prospectus on page 4.

Of course the Diocese is perfectly entitled to update its information, but the inference in the letter is that RISC was making a deliberate mis-quote, which isn't the case.

Unbelievable. Catholic VA school application to Gove includes primary school. Please write to Michael Gove and your local MP Zac Goldsmith or Vince Cable to not grant consent to Catholic VA school in Richmond. ‎2 new schools, 0 consultations!! 90% of the borough excluded from both. Justification for the secondary is weak at best but what is the possible justification for the primary !!!!!!?

gmsin, do you have a link for that information?