Russell Education Trust/Russell Group Universities

[strictlyfan2013]

Can anyone confirm if the Free School sponsor "Russell Education Trust" is linked to the Russell Group Universities please? Also, what does "State funded independent school" mean? In relation to Free Schools... Thanks!

W&G I was aware that this was the criteria for 2014 entry but also believed the 100% allocation from the admissions point was temporary. Your proposed site has obviously changed. I note your website's statement which says for 2015 you will split places between the Admissions Point and the school site itself. If 2015 admissions criteria is to be coordinated between schools affected by Turing House, however, there is a deadline of March for them to carry out consultations - otherwise they may have to wait until 2016 entry to make changes if your new site is closer to theirs than anticipated. I appreciate that your school would be exempt from until it has signed its funding agreement.

Shooting if you are employed by RET, please consider how parents may feel if you dismiss their concerns about the effect of admissions policies as 'ridiculous' and 'odd'.

are employed by RET support the school/RET

straggle I am a local parent, not employed by RET, but as I made clear several posts ago, grateful that a group of parents (implicit in that is that I am not one of them) stepped up to the considerable challenge of bringing into being a much needed and wanted school for our community.

And unless you can provide some evidence then I genuinely found your "concerns" odd, not something I have heard from any other parents. Given Turing's aims and the reality of the Waldegrave catchment it makes no sense. But please if you have genuine concerns clarify them with the Turing team. I am quite sure we long ago ceased to be of any interest to the vast majority of mumsnetters.

I can't provide evidence, but you would have no evidence to the contrary either, because no consultation has taken place yet, so no opinions would have been published on the school's website. It feels odd to apply for a school without an announced site. That is a feature of several free schools but some have delayed application rounds before the site was confirmed.

But I agree that most people switched off with talk of Catholic and Swedish 'sink' schools, planning laws and holes.

That seems to have been a feature of this thread, having to produce evidence to defend unsubstantiated attacks.

As you say hard to produce evidence that something never existed in the first place, but I think it is worth applying a common sense test.

So why would a school that set out to be inclusive, was born partly out of frustration with exclusive faith and gender selection then propose a gender selective admissions process?

And why would that gender selective selection criteria be inclusive of girls beyond a 1.5 mile catchment of Waldegrave when no one knows what the Waldegrave catchment will be in any given year. It may have stretched to 1.5 miles last year, one with a smaller pupil cohort than previous years, and even smaller in relation to next years which will be 146 pupils larger, but in previous years it was as small as 1.2 miles (refusals in Copthall and Sherland). In all likelihood it will be yet smaller next year. Matthew Paul, the Education Officer responsible at the Council knows this full well, as do the people involved with Turing.

And what was included in this alleged process to take account of Waldegrave's B catchment?

So girls who are between 1 mile and 1.5 miles from Waldegrave might may well find themselves excluded from both schools. Whilst girls in the B catchment will be able to apply to both and may well get places at both, if Turing is not oversubscribed locally (which you could reasonably predict for a new school, especially one that has not announced a site).

As I say it would have made no sense.........

W&G is right to suggest that it is up to the school to explain its own admissions policies, not the LA, and that it is required to consult before given final approval to open.

straggle It is you that asserted that such a nonsensical admissions process had been proposed and that it has since been changed to the current inclusive process. W&G explained to you that the current process as explained fully on their website, the one agreed with the LA, has never changed. The only thing I am finding inadequately explained is how you came by this misapprehension in the first place, what possible explanation you could have for it and why you are using it to imply, I am not quite sure what. Anyway if you are still confused I suggest you take it up with Turing. They are extremely open and very quick to answer all queries and questions which is why they have earned the trust of many of the community's parents, certainly my neighbours.

I didn't assert anything. I speculated that more boys than girls would apply from around that particular admissions point. Perhaps I expressed this badly. I withdrew my post anyway. The admissions policy is likely to change when there is an actual site, even if it hasn't changed since the school proposal went to the DfE.

The school's website notes that there currently no science specialist school for boys in the area as there is for girls. It may appeal particularly to boys for this reason, or it may not. I did not say or imply that it should not/could not be a co-ed school.

The school also noted back in May 2012 that it would be publishing details of the admissions policy for wider consultation. I'm not sure if this has taken place yet or which stakeholders will be/have been consulted. I don't know where the school will be sited or whether this will be announced in time for school offers to be made and accepted.

No point in speculating further.

straggle, there is detail of the consultation here.

Note the page also says the steering group is very happy to receive views and questions at any time in advance of or following the consultation period.

Suggest you send views by email rather than via Mumsnet though.